Transition Town Totnes Celebrates 20 Years

….with a Midsummer Festival of Music, Art, and Visionary Futures

This year Transition Town Totnes (TTT) is celebrating our upcoming 20th birthday with our first Midsummer Festival, a vibrant weekend-long celebration to honour two decades of climate action and community-led change, with a weekend of music, art, theatre, and interactive visioning events.

Transition Town Totnes emerged through meetings and film screenings as early as 2005, before being “unleashed” in 2006. TTT’s history has spanned projects, festivals, skillshares, workshops, and hundreds of events covering everything from the milling of grains to the growing of flax (Grown in Totnes, Totnes Grows Flax), from Inner Transition to Transition Streets, from Incredible Edible Gardens to the Reconomy Centre, and so much more.

Now, as we approach our 20th anniversary, we;re inviting everyone—long-time supporters, new faces, and the simply curious—to a joyful and inspiring Midsummer Festival, taking place from Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd June 2025. The event will blend celebration with reflection, storytelling with visioning, and feature music, theatre, walks, workshops, and interactive events.

A Weekend to Celebrate the Past and Explore the Future

The festival opens Friday evening in the beautiful Leechwell Gardens with a special performance on Whose Wild World? by Troubadour Theatre, followed by a journey through TTT’s roots with a look back at its earliest days in—how a small town in Devon sparked a worldwide movement. The evening concludes with performances from local musicians, welcoming the solstice weekend with sound and celebration.
Saturday begins in the early hours with a solstice walk to the Life Cairn in Sharpham, honouring species lost to extinction and reflecting on what it means to transition with compassion. The day continues with a showcase of <20 years of Transition work, including screenings of Transition films, exhibits from flagship projects like Totnes Pound, Grown in Totnes and Transition Streets, as well as businesses who’ve been supported by the Reconomy project, and some Transition groups from around the country. The event will include a screening of the Transition 1.0 film, and a Systems Games workshop to dive deeper into systems thinking and Transition principles.

On Saturday evening, at 5pm and 8pm, Rob Hopkins and Mr Kit have kindly come back from the future to bring us a multimedia experience “Field Recordings from the Future”; transforming St John’s Church into an immersive, musical and visual journey into a hopeful, possible future. There will be music and drinks late into the night at the Totnes Civic Hall with Shakalaka and The Shred Band.

On Sunday we are thrilled to support the launch of South Hams District Council’s new E-bike scheme with a celebratory bike ride through Totnes, followed by Zumba in Borough Park, and a community picnic in Leechwell Gardens. Local storytellers Steph Bradley and Mara Green will lead an imaginative, all-ages ‘Quest’ game, inviting participants to explore new narratives and pathways into the future.

Community Action, Collective Power

TTT was founded on the belief that if we act together as communities, we can create change that’s not only powerful but joyful and rooted in local needs. In a time when national policies often fall short of addressing the climate emergency, our work remains more relevant than ever. As Ben Brangwyn said, ‘If we act as individuals, it’ll be too little. If we wait for governments, it’ll be too late. But if we act as communities, it may just be enough just in time.’”

Whether you’ve been part of the Transition story for years or are just discovering it now, the Midsummer Festival offers a unique opportunity to reflect on what’s been achieved—and to imagine what’s still possible.

Full info and tickets for all the events are now on our Eventbrite.

These events have been supported by the Totnes Town Council and Arts Council England. Reduced rate and free tickets are available for all ticketed events as we aim to reduce any financial barriers to folks attending.