The weekend was a great success, and with many visitors braving the weather to express their love for nature on Saturday, and a capacity crowd on the sunny Sunday! With a total of over 150 organisations attending the event, the Amphitheatre and Millienium Square were decked out with marquees, most of which had literally been transformed into completely interactive exhibits ready for hand-on activities such as Wild Bristol Tent or the Connected Communities Tent! Some, such as iSpot and the BBC Natural History Unit, were decked out with the latest technology and made sure everyone had a taste of what's like to work behind their scenes. Exhibitors hadn't stopped there - many had taken the effort to dress up and no one can have missed bees buzzing about the festival...

The Green Forum tent housed over 40 environment and conservation groups and this year featured live owls! With all the celebrities - Mike Dilger, John Craven and Hugh Warwick to list a few - paying visits to the Talks Tent, every talk was well attended and the Growing Connections debate provided much food for thought for all those involved. Ready to entertain anyone stepping out of the safety of the tents, were this years amazing line up of live music acts on the festivals two main stages, Pete the Bug Man with his live insects, the 'Cloggies', the Wildlife Carnival, live poetry and some live talks in the pop up 'edible garden' which also featured a 'Plant Swap'. With all the excitement going on, the Festival beer garden was ready to seat as many people in the sun whilst they ate their lunch bought from the Festival Market, which in turn, outdid itself this year with even more local produce and sustainable goods leaving people spolit for choice!

We thoroughly enjoyed this year's festival and hope you did too! Please like our facebook page or follow us on twitter because before you know it, it'll be time for the Festival of Nature 2013 and perhaps this time, you may want to volunteer with the event, exhibit in the Green Forum tent, or organise a school visit for schools' day. Follow the links at the top of the page to find out more about what went on at the 2012 Festival of Nature. See you next year!

The 2012 Festival was supported by At-Bristol, Institute of Physics Publishing, Clifton College, Bristol Water, Sita UK, Good Energy, Wessex Water and Creative Youth Network.

The Bristol Festival of Nature worked in collaboration with Research Councils UK (RCUK), the strategic partnership of the UK’s seven Research Councils to deliver public engagement activities focussed on the new Connected Communities cross-cutting research programme. Connected Communities is led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The Festival off Nature was part of Bristol’s BIG Green Week (9-17 June 2012), the UK's world-class festival of environmental ideas, art and culture that brings green ideas to life, with a packed programme of speakers, music, art, comedy and film. See www.biggreenweek.com for more details.