Celebrating creations of all types at MakeIt Fest Nashua
MakeIt Labs is a makers’ space in downtown Nashua. On Saturday, June, 13, it will host MakeIt Fest, a celebration of maker culture. For many people, the terms “maker” or “maker space” bring a mental image of a group of young inventors with soldering irons building custom electronics in a basement somewhere. Brad Goodman thinks that is just a starting point; Making (with a capital M) is about getting drawn into learning skills that might not seem to have anything to do with each other at first glance.
Goodman, a member and director of MakeIt Labs and a coordinator for MakeIt Fest, said Making is about learning to imagine something that doesn’t exist, and then learning how to bring it into reality. “MakeitLab is a community makerspace,” he said. “We’re an all-volunteer organization, and we are basically a collective of artists, engineers, hobbyists, crafters, self-proclaimed mad scientists, and people who just like to learn things, create things and teach each other. We are a community first. We’re a building full of a lot of very cool toys, second, and we have everything from pottery studios to woodworking places to machine shops to robotics and electronics labs and a million other things. We do jewelry making, woodworking, and conventional arts and crafts.”
This weekend’s MakeIt event is about demonstrating a thirst for curiosity with a wider audience, Goodman said.
“What makes MakeIt Fest unlike most craft shows that you go to where the idea is that you come and you look at stuff that other people have done with the hope that you’ll buy something, is it’s just really more of a gathering of our members and other people in the community who are also makers and crafters and doers and it’s a chance for us to show off the kinds of stuff that we do. Really, the goal isn’t about, ‘Look at what I did; buy my stuff,” but, ‘Hey, this is the kind of stuff that we’re into and we’re just learning this too. Come join this movement. Are you interested in blacksmithing? Are you interested in woodworking? Do you not know how to weld? Do you want to learn these things? Well, this is the kind of stuff that we’re into doing and learning.’ It’s not just about inspiring people, but really giving them more of a tangible way to get started in this kind of stuff.”
MakeIt Fest will be more hands-on than many craft fairs or hobby shows, Goodman said.
“At last count, there will be about 46 different areas set up. There will be booths for makers — our members and even non-members who have their own side businesses — who do a lot of weird and creative things. A lot of [the spaces] are different things that MakeIt Labs does — showing off our woodworking, showing off pottery, showing off in general. People will be able to have a picture taken with our robot mascot and we will use a dye sublimation process to give you a mug with your picture with a robot on it. Or one of our lasers can take your name and a design and we’ll engrave your name on a key tag for you. So there’s like a lot of giveaway type things like that. Showing off our resource areas. Like I said, blacksmithing, woodworking. One guy, he bought an old school bus, turned it into a conversion van for his band to tour in. So that’ll be set up for people to come in and look at and explore.”
“We’ll have tours of our Lab and our machine shop,” Goodman said, “and drive around on our remote control couch. We’ll have our man-made kinetic sculptures, which are things like a four-wheeled bicycle that goes through roads, mud and water on display there. It’s a kind of a showcase for all the weird, wacky stuff that we do and the kind of stuff that is really attainable if you want to come to an organization like ours and learn about some of this stuff.”
“Our hope is that people come in and go, ‘Oh, wow, here’s a neat machine. If I only knew how to do that, there’s this cool thing that I really want to do.’ And then we’ll help them do that.”
MakeIt Fest 2026
When: Saturday, June 13, from noon to 4 p.m.
Where: MakeIt Labs, 25 Crown St., Nashua, 487-6218, makeitlabs.com.
More: There will be contests and raffles open to all attendees. Visit makeitfest.com