Emerge East, 2026

For the second year running U-Build spent a weekend in Barking for the 2026 Emerge East festival!

We provided the first U-Build Block Party DJ booth back in 2025, along with timber columns and stage boxes used as planters in and around the dancefloor. All components were sourced from our Box Library for the weekend and returned after the event closed for reuse at future creative events and pop-ups.

U-Build X Block Party

We were invited back by the lovely team at HemingwayDesign, who we have an ongoing collaboration with for a variety of fun projects, to provide a demountable stage for Emerge East’s 5th instalment of the celebrations. The giant street party offered amazing music, incredible food and diverse workshops for all ages, sprawling out onto the streets of Barking Riverside.

The U-Build Block Party booth hosted a back-to-back line up of talented local DJs and was even bigger and better than our first. Built out of our distinct diamond cut-out columns, first used to support travelling Boundless Theatre and reused many times since, the booth was assembled on a larger scale to serve as a centrepiece bringing people together through music and dance.

Across the dance floor we provided plywood plinths and totems for people to perch or stand on. Our stage boxes arrived flat-packed from our Box Library borrow-a-box service and were easily assembled into temporary festival infrastructure, doubling as housing for borrowed potted plants to add a splash of green to the arena. From day into night, locals and visitors boogied open-air and celebrated homegrown talent against the East London industrial backdrop.

Honeycomb Workshop

Beyond the dancefloor, U-Builder Morgan hosted his Honeycomb live building workshop. Modular geometric timber panels, initially created to build protest blockades, were repurposed and fitted together by fun seekers and playmakers to form climbable structures.

Like busy bees, locals jumped into configuring the panels like giant puzzles to crawl through, assembling without screws or bolts. The construction required no tools or experience, only a buzz to get stuck in plus heaps of curiosity and enthusiasm. The interactive event took place near the huge yellow Pollinarium dome, which celebrated the unique ecology of the Riverside and let visitors see nature through the lens of a bee.

Browse our Box Library projects or send us your enquiry about an event you need help with.