Observer Ethical Awards 2015 winners: Festival of Thrift

The festival at Lingfield Point which celebates thrift and frugal living has won this year's Arts and Culture Award

Last year 40,000 people descended on Darlington for the Festival of Thrift - an anarchic weekend of make do and mend, with added nail art. "Thrift encompasses lots of different attitudes," says director Stella Hall. "From sustainable enterprise all the way down to saving pennies. It's about a respect for materials, and for the planet. It's about choosing wisely and looking after what you have - which is quite a lot to fit into such a tiny word."

At Lingfield Point (once the world's biggest wool factory) they'll celebrate thrift for the third time this year, inviting festivalgoers to fire glass in a microwave, make their own butter or build an instrument from scrap. They encourage everybody to "think through their fingers", fix their phones, stitch their buttons. "I had a moment last year," says Hall, "watching a crowd building a shed, a group of people singing behind them - everybody a mix of ages, from kids to vintagers - and I realised everybody had arrived from a different direction but all had found their place."