24 Jul Digging for Steel Dinosaur Pieces
Digging for Steel Dinosaur Pieces – Cotesbach Music in the Yard Pop-up
On Saturday 6thJuly, we made our way to Cotesbach Music in The Yard Festival, to host a pop-up that was slightly out of the ordinary….digging for steel dinosaur pieces! 
Music in the Yard, is a day long festival, that focuses on providing family fun, showcases some brilliant live music, and offers a number of craft workshops. A range of craft tents and makers situated in the craft field were on hand. Offering a whole range of hands-on craft activities, from tie-dying to leather making, to the festival goers.
The yard is decorated in a weird and wonderful way that encapsulates the fun and quirky nature of the festival. This year, Cotesbach Estate asked us whether we could lend them a Velociraptor sculpture for the event. We were delighted to be asked, and thought that we could go one better than that. The festival attracts a great deal of families and we wanted to host an interactive activity for the children. We started pondering how we could use our metalworking skills to engage the children of the festival. Of course, heavy machinery and welding weren’t an option….we wanted a fun activity that sparked an interest, but was primarily, fun! We thought back to the activities that we enjoyed as children, digging, hunting and building! And, the idea for an interactive, metal hunting, sculpture creating pop-up was born.
Where to start?
We used our CNC plasma cutter, to cut out all of the steel dinosaur pieces, armed ourselves with a few metal detectors and made our way to The Stable Yard in Cotesbach to bury the pieces in a pit of wood chippings.
We set the challenge to the children in attendance, to find the hidden pieces and complete the dinosaur sculpture. It was brilliant to see so many enthusiastic children (and a few adults) grab a metal detector and get to work searching for metal buried under the surface. The children rose to the challenge of digging up the metal pieces and finding how they fit into the sculpture. Like futuristic archaeologists.
Fortunately our velociraptor sculptures are built in such a way, that allows the parts to slot together. We were thrilled to see that the children found this process as fascinating, and thrilling as we do. A number of Arthur Francis Sculpture designs are built in this way, and of course, welded for a more permanent finish.
We are pleased to say that all of the pieces were uncovered. Our velociraptor was completed, thanks to a brilliant effort from all of the children!
It was brilliant to get involved in such a wonderful local event, and to see so many children get excited by the possibility of creating and building with metal! We certainly channelled our inner child, hiding, digging and building.
Now, we’re just wondering how we can top this with our next event pop-up! What should we do next? We’re always open to weird and wonderful ideas!
If you’ve been inspired by the sculptures shown in this an article, and have an idea for a sculpture that you’d like to see in your business or garden, please contact us to discuss how we could bring your idea to life.