The challenge
Concerts, festivals, theatre productions and large public events bring people together, but they also produce waste at scale: disposable plates, cups and single-use materials.
Many experience-industry organisations in Turku had already picked the easy wins in circular economy. They wanted new ideas and fresh openings. The harder question was cultural: how to make circularity feel native to an industry built on experience and emotion.
The format
Humak ran an idea incubator from January to April 2025, led by a professional facilitator. Each team mixed three kinds of expertise: a representative of an experience-industry organisation, an artist, and circular economy experts and students.
The process moved through three phases: planning and recruitment, ideation and team-building, and piloting. Teams generated many wild ideas before narrowing to a few feasible ones. The facilitation kept the room open and playful, trading 'yes, but' for 'yes, and'. Colour-coded recruitment made sure every team carried a full mix of backgrounds.
What the teams made
Twenty-three people started the incubator and twenty finished. The teams produced four concepts, all built around making circularity visible through art.
Ice-Cream for End Times served a carnival parlour with provocative flavours. Zero Waste Experiment asked visitors to bring their own utensils. Spoon Movement traded cake for spoons that became a community art piece. The Sound Art Piece turned visitors' notes on circular economy into a collective soundscape. All four were piloted at the ReTurku Circular Carnival run by partner Valonia.
What other cities can reuse
The multidisciplinary team was the engine. The artist in each group pushed the work toward creative, visible outcomes rather than technical fixes.
Give the process enough time for planning, marketing and recruitment, and keep participants informed after they sign up. One clear lesson: say early that the outcomes serve the whole industry, not individual companies. When that was left unsaid, some participants arrived with the wrong expectations.
Budget and model
The incubator ran on a modest budget of around 12,300 EUR, funded by the CCC Project through Interreg Baltic Sea Region. Costs covered venue and catering across five meetings (2,600 EUR), professional facilitation (6,700 EUR) and video and photo documentation (3,000 EUR).
The model travels well because its value sits in the method, cross-sectoral teams and creative facilitation, rather than in expensive production.
Explore the Turku method
Humak built an open micro-course on cross-sectoral innovation for business support organisations and NGOs.
