Festivals come and go but two new additions seem to be here to stay. We look back at the second Wunderbar and the inaugural Newcastle Philosophy Festival.

A SUCCESSFUL festival finishes with thoughts of the next one forming in the minds of the organisers – and that’s the way it was with Wunderbar at the weekend.

The festival with the slightly puzzling name was designed to take place every two years. It was piloted in 2009 and really took off this year with a wealth of imaginative and unusual projects dependent on public participation.

Attractions this year included a sunset bicycle ride, a desk-chair disco, a human library – where you could “borrow” an interesting human being to talk to – and the musical Glorious.

Director Ilana Mitchell said yesterday: “Nothing is set in stone but we’re planning to make it happen again and we have plans to do some projects through 2012.”

She said some of this year’s projects had sown the seed for more ambitious versions next time around, as with the bike ride.

“The idea is that it leads to a bigger project for 2013 which is about a group of people making a major intervention into a building.

“This year’s ride – from Benwell to the Ouseburn – was about how architecture shapes the way we move through a city. We are working with Xsite Architecture in Newcastle on this one.”

Ilana said the desk-chair disco – basically, dancing while sitting on a wheeled office chair – had been amazing and “a bit like human-powered dodgems”.

Michelle Percy, of Silverlink Holdings, which owns the empty office space that hosted the event, had apparently been impressed by the unusual spectacle.

But with desk chairs having been donated by a range of companies, it also raised some serious questions. With redundancies rife and the economy sluggish, how to put vacant office space to beneficial use?

Ilana said she was delighted that the festival had drawn in people who might not be considered regular attenders at arts events, with 175 people writing a letter to help artist Rajni Shah get her Glorious project started.

Ilana said the Human Library, involving a host of volunteers in libraries and other venues, had proved popular and could resurface in future at other venues.

Last week’s Work-a-thon, giving lonely home workers the chance to gather together for a day of collective toil, had broken the record and made a lot of people happy.

Ilana said: “We are living in a world that is changing and throwing up a lot of serious issues. I think through Wunderbar we are able to address those issues in a playful way.

“I’m interested to see where it all takes us. This year’s festival has been very successful and, with all the volunteers, we are building up a large group of Wunderbar alumni.”

So, roll on 2013.