• Hot new TikTok trend for #furnitureflip attracts billions of views
• Celebrities like Kirstie Allsop advocating for upcycling in the media

The number of Upcycling events on ticketing and event platform, Eventbrite, has grown by over 50% over the last three years in the UK, attracting hundreds of thousands of people looking to breathe new life into furniture, save money, avoid waste, and to create something unique.

A hot new trend on TikTok, #furnitureflip is reaching whole new audiences, having amassed a staggering 5.4bn views worldwide to date, while celebrities like Kirstie Allsop and Stacey Solomon advocate for the upcycling of furniture in mainstream media.

Meanwhile, BBC One’s The Repair Shop, which sees a team of Britain’s most skilled craftspeople rescue and resurrect precious items, has also been watched by millions and seems to have brought the option to repair further into the limelight.

The higher public interest in upcycling is reflected not just in the increasing number of upcycling events on Eventbrite, but also in their variety: From heritage upcycling techniques such as Rag Rugging, during which old clothes and scraps are used to make rugs to vintage China and furniture restoration, the platform holds a wide range of events for upcycling beginners through to professionals.

The BBC recently reported that ‘upcycling is making a comeback amid a money-saving drive’ citing Repair Café Wales as seeing a spike interest during and since the Covid pandemic. 

Eventbrite Creator ‘Petit Miracles Interiors’

Eventbrite creator, Petit Miracles Interiors has experienced a similar upturn. It holds weekly workshops on the platform so people can learn from its experienced team how to transform furniture and get hands-on experience of cleaning, sanding and painting with the correct tools.

Petit Miracles is a small charitable organisation that takes unwanted, worn or broken furniture,  diverting it from landfill to reduce the harmful effects of today’s consumerism-led culture on the planet.

Gabi Goldenberg, Workshop Manager at Petit Miracles said: “We’ve seen an increase in both demand for workshops and people wanting to learn further skills, which is why we have diversified our offer to create new workshops that use multiple techniques. It allows people to participate in more than one workshop and gain a wider range of skills and knowledge.

“Most attendees want to apply the techniques and knowledge they learn on pieces of furniture they already have, rather than buying new items and discarding old ones. Our most popular workshop is learning how to upcycle for beginners, which gives people the basic skills around understanding the upcycling process, cleaning, sanding, correct tool usage, and painting a piece of wooden furniture to a high standard. It’s hard work but very rewarding as they transform a piece of dowdy furniture into a slick and modern piece in about three hours.”

Upcycling Uptick Fed by Several Societal Trends

Eventbrite’s Sebastian Boppert said: “The tremendous uptick in upcycling events on our platform is fed by several wider societal trends: Firstly, pandemic lockdowns made us stare at our old furniture a lot over the past few years, and that has massively heightened our desire for home improvement. Secondly, and partly for the same reason, people are into (re-)learning artisan skills to create something unique they can be proud of. Then there’s the sustainability movement that aims to tackle our throwaway mentality to reduce wastefulness. And lastly, we are facing a cost of living crisis that prompts many people to find new ways to save some money. Upcycling addresses all of these needs, so it’s not entirely surprising that so many people are flocking to upcycling events they found and booked through Eventbrite.”