Lighting artist shines following thrift festival

As preparations continue for this year’s National Festival of Thrift in September, a north east business says it's helped boost sales.

In the past eight months, Light Up North, a producer of one-off neon wall hangings, has gone from testing its ideas and designs with some of the festival’s 35,000 visitors to exporting its creations across the world and employing four people.

The Saltburn-based company was a first-time stall-holder at last year’s national celebration of stylish and sustainable living at Kirkleatham, having just taken the plunge to launch as a business.

Emma Krause, Light Up North’s co-owner, said the idea for the business came about when she and her now business partner Dave Freeney met after she moved to the area and needed her house re-wiring.

Light Up North’s creations use electroluminescent neon wire that was originally designed for use in car dashboards. Developed in the past five years it is very flexible and uses very little power, making it very sustainable.

Since the event Light Up North’s neon creations have been showcased in Milan, Sydney and at Fortnum & Mason and have been sold around the world.

Festival Director, Stella Hall said that Light Up North’s success illustrates one of the aims of the event - to support creative small businesses being set up in the region and enabling them to be sustainable.

Last year’s Festival attracted over 35,000 visitors who spent topped £500,000. The 2016 Festival of Thrift attracted over 35,000 visitors with everyone who responded to a post-event survey rating the Festival positively and 95% describing the Festival as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’.

Figures after the event also revealed that it boosted the local economy by £1/2M.

All stalls have now been allocated for the 2017 event and stallholders are busy working on creating their wares for the weekend.

A range of workshops at the festival will be announced closer to the event for people looking to learn a new skill or discover a hidden talent.

Further details about the Festival of Thrift are available here