Every year, Labfest gives us an excuse to step away from the day job, get everyone together, and spend a Friday doing something completely different. While we’re proud of the work we do, we’re equally proud of the team behind it, and Labfest is all about celebrating that. It’s an opportunity to bring everyone together and enjoy a day that reminds us that Labman is much more than just the projects we work on.
This year’s theme was Wild Wild Fest, which meant one thing: cowboy hats, questionable American accents, and turning Labman into our very own Wild West town for the day.
As always, everyone embraced the theme far more enthusiastically than anyone expected.
The Wild West experience started as soon as people arrived. Joy and Josie were on hand serving up Labman Mules as the welcome drink, helping everyone ease into the day before heading through the saloon doors and into the main marquee.
Once everyone had arrived, Ian officially welcomed the crowd and kicked off the festivities, setting the tone for a day that would be packed with games, food, music and more than a little friendly competition.
The games are always one of the highlights of Labfest, and this year was no different. Designed and built by Labman teams, proving once again that given enough time and a theme, engineers will build absolutely anything.
One of the biggest hits was Lasso the Cow, where people attempted to rope a moving cow. It looked easy from a distance. It wasn’t.
The annual Scrapheap Challenge also returned, with Andrew setting teams what appeared to be a straightforward task: build the most beautiful sculpture possible from a pile of materials.
What Andrew neglected to mention was that beauty wasn’t the only criterion.
Once the sculptures were complete, they were subjected to an unexpected durability test, with fishing wire being used to pull them apart and reveal which creations were actually built to survive.
The return of the face painter proved just as popular as ever, from cowboy moustaches and sheriff badges to creations that had very little to do with the Wild West at all.
Some traditions are simply too good to leave out.
Of course, no Wild West festival would be complete without line dancing, fortunately, enthusiasm counted for more than technique.
Big D’s BBQ kept everyone fed with a fantastic barbecue spread, while Three Brothers Brewing provided a steady flow of locally brewed refreshments throughout the day.
Combined with the sunshine, it created exactly the kind of atmosphere you’d hope for from a summer Labfest.
As the afternoon rolled into evening, attention turned to the stage.
Robbie and the Near Misses returned once again to provide the soundtrack to the night, proving that the people who build robots can also put on a pretty decent live show. The crowd gathered, the dance floor filled up, and the Wild West celebrations carried on long into the evening.
One of the things that makes Labfest special is that so much of it is created by the people who work here. From the saloon entrance and wanted posters to the games, decorations and countless little details, an enormous amount of effort goes into bringing the theme to life every year.
Wild Wild Fest was no exception.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped plan, build, decorate, organise, run and tidy away the event. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes, but the result was another brilliant day spent together as a company.
Good food, great music, questionable rodeo performances, unexpectedly destructive sculpture judging, and more cowboy hats than North Yorkshire has ever seen.
We’ll call that a success.
See y’all next year.