Spring is on its way, and we’re gearing up for an exciting Easter full of music, creativity, and hands-on fun! Whether you’re planning a family event, festival, or community day, Play The Rig is ready to bring an unforgettable musical experience to your audience.

Why book Play The Rig?
✅ Fully interactive – a hands-on musical playground where everyone becomes a musician
✅ Eco-friendly fun – built from upcycled objects, inspiring creativity and sustainability
✅ Perfect for all ages – little ones, big kids, and grown-ups alike love getting stuck in
✅ Indoor or outdoor setups – flexible options to suit your space

Choose from three different Rig sizes (small, medium, or large), plus add-on zones like our Arts & Crafts Zone or Mini Play Zone (inside only) to make your event even more special! Once set up, The Rig becomes a free-exploration space, inviting people to experiment with sound, rhythm, and play at their own pace.

Spots for the Easter holidays are still open! Don’t miss your chance to bring Play The Rig to your event—get in touch today to secure your date!

Contact Amy amy@playtherig.co.uk to book 

#PlayTheRig #EasterEvents #UpcycledMusic #FamilyFun #InteractiveMusic #FestivalVibes

How We Made Our Most Recent Creation: The Hands Rig

After much thought, we decided it was time to retire our beloved Telephone Rig (see photo below from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in 2017!) which was nearly 10 years old. But as we pride ourselves on creating Play the Rig installations through upcycling, we couldn’t let it go to waste. Instead of discarding it, we repurposed the old Telephone Rig into something entirely new! The phones and horn were passed on to other rigs, while the sturdy frame and feet became the perfect foundation for our latest creation—The Hands Rig.

Starting with the frame from the old rig, we gave it a fresh look by covering it with musical paper, adding a glossy varnish, and giving the feet a bold red coat of paint. To take it up a notch, we enlisted the help of a talented metal worker to design beautiful bent wire frames for each end of the structure, adding an elegant and sculptural touch. For the middle section, we crafted custom wooden fixtures (also painted red, of course!) to hold all the exciting musical components we had planned.

Now, it was time for the fun part— the bits and bobs! We collected a variety of objects, including cutlery, egg cups, bottle tops and drainpipes, and we even found bed knobs and candlesticks from one of the first Rigs we ever made. With some careful drilling, we transformed the candlesticks and cutlery into lovely wind chimes, while the drainpipes were cut to different lengths to create a pentatonic scale. We mounted them on wooden fixtures and added a flip-flop beater to play with. On each end, we placed two upside-down buckets, turning them into bongo-style drums, and in the centre, we incorporated tactile bottle tops and egg cups, making The Hands Rig an inclusive sensory experience for everyone.

What started as an old rig has now evolved into a brand-new, exciting interactive installation, and was a huge hit at events in 2024! Stay tuned to see where The Hands Rig will bring its upcycled sounds next. ????✨

Hi Riggers!

We’ve had some beautiful, sunny summer days recently and we often find ourselves looking at the clear blue sky and dreaming about being in a field with The Rig somewhere. Normally, this is our busiest time of year for music festivals and family days and we love travelling around the country to different cultural events, taking The Rig with us for you all to try.

Alas, it was not meant to be this year.

We want to take the opportunity to send our good vibes to you all, hoping you are all happy and safe and smiling through the difficult times.

Although many of the festivals for 2020 have been cancelled/postponed and we can’t get the Rig to you in person, we’ve been doing lots of virtual bits and bobs to make sure we are still reaching you all in this time with some music fun!

So what have we been doing?

The Rig Play Zone on YouTube

We have created a new playlist on our @playtherig YouTube channel called The Rig Play Zone where we have added lots of “how to” videos and fun musical games. These include:

• How to make a ukulele 
• How to make a hosepipe horn
• How to make tin can telephones
• How to make a tin can drum

We’ve got ideas on there for fun musical games and also educational videos about some of the BBC Ten pieces and composers to keep the kids entertained.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you get alerts when we post new videos.

How-to videos on Facebook and Instagram

We’ve also created lots of one minute How-to videos that we’ve posted on our social media platforms. Like you, we’ve been staying at home and have been looking around our houses to see what we can make using bits and bobs we’ve found at home. So far this has included:

• musical water jars
• plastic bottle boom whackers
• bits-and-bobs shakers
• oven tray headphones
• guitar tupperware

Who knew you could make so much from your recycling bin?!

Rig Memories on Facebook

As we can’t get to festivals ourselves, we’re going to bring the festival to YOU!

We’ve created a Rig Memories playlist on Facebook which features some of our favourite moments at the Rig.

• See what The Rig is like in action
• Reminisce on an event you saw The Rig at
• Get a feel-good vibe seeing so many smiley faces!

Make sure to like/follow our Facebook and Instagram pages to see these videos when they get released. 

And finally, just a reminder of what we normally look like and the fun we have…!

Wet, wild and wonderful – this years WOMAD festival was amazing as ever! We survived the storms with our fantastic team of Becky Browne, Meg Brooks, Sazzy Fish and Josh Copperfield.

WOMAD

We saw some incredible bands including Magnifico, De La Soul, Orange Blossom and Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar.

The childrens area was, as usual filled with brilliant acts and, despite the torrential rain, we all soldiered on!

We all had such fun and had loads of jams with adults and children while sheltering from the rain.

We love you WOMAD!!

Photos by Josh Coppersmith Heaven.

Our first festival of the season, and what a lovely festie it was! A real family treat with a million things to keep the little ones happy. Our team for this festival was Amy & Becky (of course!) with the wonderful Joe and Poppy helping. Despite there being a few rain storms, we all just put on every item of clothing we had and flew The Rig fun flag!

We had some wonderful kids come to play The Rig, including these two little diamonds:

Joe wowed people with the ‘Magic Grill’ which is his new name for our ‘Oven Tray Headphones’ as, well, it is a grill and it is, of course, magic…

The new additions to our Rhythm Mini Rig and Bells Mini Rig went down a treat – with teapots, bike bells and an abacus!

We finished the festival off by watching Lady Smith Black Mambazo which was absolutely brilliant – they are so talented and are so refreshing to watch, as they know how to have fun on stage while still being musically perfect.

Next stop, Mycenae House and afterwards Cornbury Festival – roll on Summer!