Makery

In Toulouse, an XXL Fablab Festival to change scale

Crowd at the Fablab Festival 2017. © Makery

Published 16 May 2017 by

#Fablab Festival. More of a great Make celebration than the makers’ rendezvous: the Toulouse festival welcomed 9,000 visitors from May 11 to 14. With a dense program of debates, workshops and demos, a “pro” day sponsored by Airbus and some 150 fablabs. 

Toulouse, special correspondent

Anthony Auffret was the one who put his foot in it, on the last day of the Fablab Festival, on Sunday May 14. Taking advantage of the roundtable questions on “Innovating and economic models”, this pioneer of the maker movement in France (Les Fabriques du Ponant, Les Petits débrouillards…) asks why nothing has changed in the organization of the festival when Donald Trump has become president of the United States, when the French presidential campaign has disrupted the French political landscape, when COP21 is being challenged… A little dishonest, but with sincere questioning: aren’t makers at the center of political issues transforming society?

It’s a tradition: “fabmanagers” family portrait at the 2017 Fablab Festival. © Makery

For its third edition from May 11-14, the Toulouse Fablab Festival (of which Makery is a partner) however changed scale. It first successfully met the challenge of increasing its attendance levels again: 9,000 visitors (against 7,500 in 2016), including 600 fabmanagers on the Thursday and 1,600 “pros” on the Friday, day sponsored by Airbus. A build-up that occurred with a larger budget (around €150,000 this year, according to Nicolas Lassabe, co-founder of Artilect, the fablab from Toulouse heading the event, against €80,000 last year), with more countries represented (20), more fablabs (150), more exhibitors (95), and a strong European dimension via the theme Make Europe (forty or so fabmanagers, makers and European guests).

The drone flying area, key draw for the general public at the Fablab Festival. © Makery
Other “standard” of the fabfest, the 3D printer, as intriguing as ever… © Makery
The stands proposed multiple activities of initiation to electronic DIY. © Makery

The 2017 edition is in fact a success with the public. It confirms the heightened visibility of the maker movement: the mayor of Toulouse made his first appearance, Airbus became the sponsor of the “pro” day–that may have irked early-day makers with its start-up contests and its declared business orientation. “The objective of this edition was to bring together European fablabs, change scale to prepare FAB14 (the international conference of fablabs that will take place in France in 2018, editor’s note). There is a true momentum, everyone wants to go,” says Nicolas Lassabe.

Nicolas Lassabe, co-founder and director of Artilect, answers the question: “What is a fablab?” © Makery

This transition edition for 2018, that will see France organizing FAB14 from July 17 to 24 (the fabconf in Toulouse from July 17 to 20, a fabfestival at the weekend and the Fab City Summit in Paris on July 23 and 24), reflects the challenges and issues put to makers. Fablabs have never been as many, institutions eager to be part of them, businesses so curious of this open innovation that promises new production methods.

It’s the edition of the change of scale, where pioneers de facto gave way to new faces (as in the organization of the festival that turned professional). Concarneau, Narbonne, Millau, Vitry…These towns will soon be equipped with fablabs. Their project leaders roam the festival floor, take part in barcamps, join the French network of fablabs (RFFLabs) that held its general meeting on the first day. “Already three new members this morning,” said with delight Olivier Gendrin, its president. “The movement may be getting banalized, recognizes Nicolas Lassabe. Today, we are at the peak, it’s the right moment to crystalize things.”

Birth notice of fablabs

The fabmanagers of the Fedlab Occitanie. © Makery

The stand of fablabs from Occitanie (Southwestern France) truly reflects this dynamic: it moved three times during the four days of the festival!  Designed brick by brick by the members of the Occitanie Fedlab (we stopped counting them for the photo after Albi, Limoux, Rodez, Perpignan, Millau, Béziers, Lagardelle-sur-Lèze, Cintegabelle, and the Narbonne fablab, inaugurated two days before the festival began) and appearing as a mini-fablab by itself.

So, no “great” politics, but loads of major societal issues were addresses during the festival. There was a lot of talk in particular about DIY and disability, with the presence of the maker ambassador Nicolas Huchet and his DIY prosthesis Bionicohand.

For the curious, food lovers and players…

The night club fridge got its fill… of beers.

The workshops (for children and adults) also appealed a lot, whether it was to build your own mini game console (see below), discover 3D printing, Arduino or build a light detector.

Kitco portable game console fabrication workshop. © Makery

Outside, between two bio responsible food trucks, the no-waste Discosoupe workshops offered welcome snack breaks.

A break in the (shared) garden. © Makery

Not forgetting the Dutch printer Focus de Byflow, for chocolate and other food, that got a lot of attention…

If political questions that made the headlines were barely addressed, it might also be because the maker movement is still young, because it bears values around optimism (DIY, upcycling and low-tech ecology, Fabcity, education through making, re-appropriation of production on a local and personalized scale…) And because the Fablab festival, through its agile technology demos, frugality in innovation, its reinvented business models, is anticipating on the ancient world to imagine the future!

Relive the 2017 Fablab Festival: our portraits of maker girls, the Fabcity under the critical eye of the urban planner Krzysztof Nawratek, and the live from Makery