Engaging with the Cally Festival – Our Learning

Helen Craig, Head of Public Engagement (programmes) reflects on her first time at the Cally Festival – and shares some thoughts on the experience of supporting those who are new to public engagement. 

The Cally Festival is a community festival that takes place each year on the Caledonian Road in Islington. Families and visitors experience music, performance, art, hands-on activities, a street market and creative workshops. And today, we hoped they would engage with us, too. Walking up the Caledonian Road, shoulders laden with emergency bin bags, our first sight of the festival was a colourful Helter-Skelter, presiding over the road closed signs and promising an afternoon of enthusiastic family fun. 

We were here to support three teams of UCL staff and students to bring their research, and interactive activities, to the attendees at this community festival. One further UCL team were also in attendance, invited by the Institute of Physics – Wakami Soh and a team of students from UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy, discussing dark matter. 

We’d met our trio of teams through a competitive process to win funding and mentorship, arranged by the Public Engagement team and funded by UCL Knowledge Exchange. The call was designed for those new to public engagement, and it had certainly been an exciting introduction with teams needing to figure out how to spend their budget, how to staff their stall all day, and how to accommodate and react to the needs of other stallholders at the festival. 

Our advice before this had been somewhat focused on the practical; getting that money spent, testing those activities, and making sure you’d bought emergency snacks and contact details. But now that the day arrived, we were ready to see how things worked when you add the most important ingredient, the members of the public themselves. 

Our first stall was “Our Voices Carry: A Living Archive of Sound, Story and Ecology” from The Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective. This stall had a beautiful but ambitious design, requiring a divided gazebo to create a lounging area with cushions, hangings and spaces to draw and create, and a more secluded area to record stories and answer the question “What does home sound like to you?”. Some key learning from this team for me was to make sure I supported people with their set-up, as well as their activity itself. They had some amazing conversations, and it was great to see the space being used.

“My favourite memory was seeing how children responded so openly to the activities at our stall; from drawing to recording their voices, they really brought an energy of playfulness and curiosity. It reminded me why public engagement thrives when we create spaces where people feel safe to experiment and express themselves. I’m also grateful for the hands-on support from Sarah and Helen from the UCL Public Engagement team, as well as our five amazing volunteers who worked tirelessly to keep the stall running smoothly throughout the day, even in the torrential rain when our gazebo (without walls!) was struggling to hold up.” – Dana Sousa-Limbu, Events Manager at the Barlett

Next were ‘Likes, Lies, and Algorithms: Uncovering Misinformation Online’ from staff at The UCL Department of Political Science. They had a prime spot on the main street and so had plenty of people engaging with their images. They had created a game to ask people to vote on what was misinformation or not. For this team, it was all about managing energy over the long festival day and realising that they had a wider age range of people interested than they’d anticipated. The conversations sparked by the example stories were brilliant, and it was wonderful to see people taking advantage of the chance to discuss this important issue.  

“Seeing the festival very busy with lots of visitors from within and outside the community! Having conversations with some lovely, genuinely interested people who wanted to know more about what we do.”  – Dr Emma Connolly from Fellow in Politics and Digital Civic Education

The “Likes, Lies, and Algorithms: Uncovering Misinformation Online” stand

Finally, we supported “Draw the place you love: What does home mean to you?” from staff in Migrant Research Unit (MRU UCL). Their large-scale map and other craft activities were popular. But they had some issues with craft materials running out, which will definitely be something to keep in mind next time. They also struggled with the unpredictable British weather at times threatening their map! But it was wonderful to see how it filled with contributions, people linking home with where they want to be. 

“Keep your set-up simple and flexible. Festivals are fast-moving, and unexpected challenges (like the weather or last-minute confirmations) can derail even the best-laid plans. An easy, low-maintenance stall means you can focus on connecting with people rather than wrestling with logistics. I’d also say: prepare multiple entry points into your project so you can engage both adults and children at the same time. Having a clear, accessible ‘elevator pitch’ is crucial for helping people quickly understand what your stall is about and why it matters.”  – Dana

Dr Conolly was keen to echo these thoughts:

“Be prepared just to go with the flow. You can’t always predict how the day will go, or what people you’ll see, or what conversations you’ll have, so just go with it. Be prepared to adapt to your audience. We changed our initial activity on the advice of Sarah and Helen and we’re really glad we did because people loved it!” 

Dana very thoughtfully gave good ‘food for thought’ regarding reflections on the future of the festival:

 

“The Cally Festival reinforced for me the importance of layering creativity, care, and accessibility into public engagement. While children engaged most readily, it raised the question of how to invite adults into that same openness. Moving forward, I’m building on this with my work through my platform DIVINE KIND (@DivineKind.Sounds on Instagram). I’ve just wrapped up INTERCONNECTED series 1, which is a series of narrated music shows hosted on Mixcloud weaving together sound, story and care in various spaces where I find retreat or refuge within a bustling city like London. Think ‘discovering what happens when you hand an academic the aux’. I’m now planning series 2 in collaboration with both academics and artists. This next chapter will expand on themes of intergenerational knowledge-sharing and creative research, deepening the ways we use sound to carry memory and imagination across different contexts.”

“At the same time, I’m contributing to The Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective’s exhibition and public events programme, with new possibilities emerging for spin-off events and evolving forms of public engagement. The Cally Festival and working with UCL Public Engagement has encouraged me to think about how those future projects can remain adaptable, intergenerational, and rooted in care, much like the communities they’re designed for.”

Dr Conolly also gave thoughts on how this experience might shape what happens next.

“In September, we’re expanding our Digital Civics provision in schools and in other settings, so we will use the success of this activity to think about what we deliver. The good thing for us, that came directly from festival engagement, is that we know people are interested and want to talk about the issues we raised.” 

The “Draw the place you love: What does home mean to you?” stand.

The festival was a positive experience, and taking part has already led to benefits through connections forged with other UCL teams and community groups. Discussions and contacts made on the day with visitors, organisations and schools have also led to further projects and interest. It was a great example of how enriching engagement can be and the benefits of taking that very first step. 

This blog was written by Helen Craig.