madeHERE Festival 2026 - Celebrating Creative Arts in Borehamwood and Elstree
Borehamwood is a funny place.
It’s in Greater London, but it’s not bustling, metropolitan, progressive London. It’s in Hertfordshire but it’s not leafy, conservative, parochial Hertfordshire. If Borehamwood were a person, they would be hard working, skilful, highly committed, resilient… but with a low opinion of themselves, poor self esteem, and lacking confidence in their own brilliance. ESA has been serving this community for nearly 14 years! I love the place. It is the perfect playground for ESA. It is the home of the ancillary crafts and trades of the UK creative industries. The place is full of production services companies, grip, camera, light and sound hire houses, prop and costume warehouses, scenic painters and set construction workshops. It is the home of UK film and Television for over 100 years. The place is so cool. Down the road from us is a prop and production company that make all the dead bodies for film and TV! This is the home of the Muppet Show, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Wicked, The Shining, Paddington!
And yet…
Borehamwood is an understated place.
The town does not think of itself as the life blood of culture and creative technology [even though that is demonstrably what we are]. Borehamwood is an understated place that sees itself as hard graft trades people. Carpenters and riggers and builders. Craftspeople - the unsung ‘off camera’ workers. Necessary? Yes, certainly, but not glamorous. Not sparkly or magical. Not even cultured or creative, rather dependable grafters. I admire deeply the unfussy, straightforward ‘crack on and solve the problem’ mentality, the ‘get the job done’ grit. Truly I love this place. But I also have a problem with this Borehamwood branding. Here’s why:
Borehamwood doesn’t read enough.
The Hertsmere Cultural Plan and Creative Strategy 2024 identified that only 4% of Hertsmere residence attend Art Galleries often. Only 7% regularly go to the theatre. Cultural Arts events can be expensive and Borehamwood is not a place rolling in expendable income. 1 in 5 of our students are free school meals students. But we are also concerned that over half of our students (52% in 2025) start school with a reading age below GCSE level with over a third reading below secondary level. While I love the understated ‘can do’ skills and hard work ethic of this area and its community, we need to foster creativity and a love for cultural arts. It seems mad to me that this town of trades and crafts excellence is literally the back bone of our prized creative industries and yet many of our students do not see themselves as cultured or entitled to the creative confidence of more affluent peers. Es Devlin once said “I envisioned it, I sketched it out without having the technical know-how to make it happen. Of course, someone else knew how. It just shows you can design nice things without having any idea how they fucking work.” The cleverest and most artistic and people need the crafts and trades people to actually create anything. It’s the ‘below the line’ Borehamwood locals who actually do the creating, the incarnating, the manifesting, they are the magicians - the artists.
the Borehamwood madeHERE festival.
That is why we launched the madeHERE festival. To celebrate, showcase and promote the arts and culture of this community. To highlight some of that magic, to encourage the creative identity of this place, to build our self confidence and pride. And what a community festival it was. It was as though Borehamwood and Elstree wanted a space to show their sparkles. Sequins only dazzle if you shine the light on them. Borehamwood is not a place that takes to the dance floor by force, we don’t swan in and show off, like anyone with a confidence problem, we wait for permission… but once permissioned, we saw dance schools and live dramatic arts, spoken word and bands and singers, and exercise class tutors and painters and photographers and culinary creators and mixologists and comedians yes, even an actual magician. Our 3 big studios came out to play and local businesses and the mayor and the local retirement community and families and teachers - all the creatives vibing and sharing culture.
Borehamwood is, and is becoming, a leading town of culture.
So next year, story, reading, film and theatre festival plans, workshops from some of our resident crafts and trades people, creative technicians and engineers. Behind the scenes magic and cultural sparkle. A clearer connection between the imagineers and story tellers, connecting up the artistic, the reading and the technical skills to show the full collaboration power that operates the arts. And like all magical works of the universe, this was our plan before we even discovered that the coming year is literally a Hertsmere year of culture… well the planets align. We will be sharing further plans for the madeHERE Festival 2027 during the coming months. Please partner with us, collaborate and play… let’s rebrand Borehamwood to promote and reflect a literate, cultural hub of hardworking creative and joyful storytellers.
