Timber Festival

Timber – the International Forest Festival

Timber is an extraordinary new festival where music, art, philosophy, and sustainability will weave together into an exhilarating weekend in the heart of the National Forest, one of Britain’s boldest environmental projects. 

Taking place over three days, it will be the only international forest festival in the UK. Experience the transformative impact of forests with artists, musicians, scientists and thinkers from across the world. Explore what woodlands can mean to us and how we can re-imagine our relationship with our environment.  Play and create an arboreal wonderland, where the tonic of wildness rules supreme. 

Created by the National Forest Company and Wild Rumpus, award-winning producers of the Just So Festival, the experiences that Timber will offer include:

Provocation. Writers, artists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and educators will help you to re-imagine what woodlands and trees mean to us, how we live in nature and will examine our relationship with the world around us. Prepare to be inspired and inspire others in turn. Expect a curated programme of talks and discussions exploring the interface between humans and nature, from the impact we have on the environment, to the benefits that woods and forests can have on individuals and communities, and the ways that art, poetry, and film reflect the natural world.

Sound.  An ambitious adventure into sound and music, rooted in the forest. Join us around the campfire and on our three main stages for live music. Venture into the woods to be immersed in compelling sound installations, storytelling, soundscapes and DJ sets. We’ll be working with sound artists who are responding to forest environments in incredible, interactive ways, and choirs will be bringing the woods to life through song. 

Light. Torchlight processions, light projections, fire gardens, luminous installations, will help us see the forest in a new light. Expect incredible international performance as dusk falls each night, and discover the unexpected as into the night the forest will be transformed by spectacular light installations.

Feast. A joyous exploration of food and drink, from farmers’ market stalls to food trucks, foraging workshops to picnics and banquets, we’ll be contemplating and consuming some fantastic fodder. Programming will include creative play with food, incredible performance along culinary lines and chefs creating exciting menus from our hedgerows and woodlands.

Time.  Inspired by artist David Nash’s Noon Columns, we’ll explore the atmosphere in the woods at twilight, midnight, dusk and dawn to delight in the rhythms of the day. We’ll be transfixed by sundials, hourglasses, and clocks as we pass the time. We’ll be singing the dawn chorus, running through the gloaming, and reveling at midnight gigs.  

Gather. We’ll come together to celebrate, collaborate, collude and carouse in a world of arts, crafts, and enterprise rooted in the forest, creating a vibrant living landscape. We’ll join in the very best circus, theatre, comedy and dance within our woodland playground.  Watch those innovating in forests around the world as they share their passions with us and get hands-on building and constructing as we learn new skills, discover new talents and explore the beauty and possibilities of wood as a material. Stretch body and mind by tree climbing and forest bathing. We’ll also be celebrating Black to Green, exploring how the heart of the National Forest has been transformed from coal pits to tree tops. 

Breathe.  Relax and soak in the landscape all around, take time to revel in the beauty, solace, and artistry of nature.  A woodland retreat awaits as we reimagine halcyon days in harmony with nature. Drink in the forest air from our eco-spa, revel in yoga practice and other relaxation activities, contemplate the seasons, explore our arboreal wonderland, enjoy the tranquility of the environment. 

Timber is a not-for-profit festival with sustainability at its heart. Aiming to be powered by 100% renewable energy and carbon neutral, Timber will partner with other international forest festivals to share knowledge and innovations taking place in forests and transforming lives across the world. 

Timber is a new annual camping festival located at Feanedock, a 70-acre woodland site at the heart of the National Forest. Embracing 200 square miles of the Midlands, the National Forest is the first forest to be created in England for over 1000 years. Spanning parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire, the first trees in the National Forest were planted over 25 years ago, to transform a landscape that had been left scarred and derelict by the closure of the Midlands coalfield.  The whole Forest area spans rolling hills and farmland, towns, villages and industrial hubs, as well as the former coalfield, all framed by woodland: over eight and a half million trees have been planted since the early 1990s.  The National Forest is a forest for the nation, a national asset that demonstrates a revolutionary approach to forestry, showing how well-designed woodlands can enrich the lives of people, businesses, and wildlife while helping to address climate change.