Major new tech festival coming to Hackney

A world-renowned technology and innovation festival is coming to Hackney next summer.

The Maker Faire will be held at Here East, formerly iCITY, and is expected to bring tens of thousands of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students and commercial exhibitors to the site on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The initiative, launched in 2006 and described as the ‘Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth’, usually has just two ‘flagship’ festivals which take place in San Francisco and New York, with a series of smaller events across the globe.

This new third flagship fair will run in the 2015 summer holidays for up to four weeks, and is expected to draw about 75,000 people.

It’s entirely fitting that Maker Faire is coming to Hackney, a borough which has established itself as London's leading community of creative innovators and makers embracing advanced tech to build an economy based on both design and manufacture. “The expansion of Hackney's economy continues apace with the new Here East in Hackney Wick acting as the Maker Faire host. Across the borough local businesses and the Council are working together to unlock the full potential of this growth for the wider community, creating routes to jobs and space for start up businesses.

Cllr Guy Nicholson, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Hackney Council