Renno at FixFest 2026: two days with the builders we're building for

What is FixFest?

FixFest is the UK's festival for tradespeople, created by Fix Radio, the national station known as the Builders Station. It launched in 2025 as the country's first music festival built for builders and their families, and for 2026 it moved to Delapre Abbey in Northampton on Saturday 11 July. Think live music, trade stands, hands-on activities and diggers, all aimed squarely at the people who keep the country's homes and sites standing.

It is the brainchild of Fix Radio founder Louis Timpany, who started the station in 2017 after having the idea while labouring on a building site. Fix Radio now reaches more than 700,000 tradespeople a week, so FixFest is less a marketing event and more a gathering of the whole community in one field for a day. For a company building payment tools for exactly that community, there was no better place to be.

Why Renno went to FixFest

We launched Renno in the UK only a few weeks ago. So much of what we do happens behind a screen, building for names on a list. FixFest was the first time we got to stand face to face with the people we are actually building for, shake hands, and hear straight from them what matters. We did not come to sell but rather to listen.

Louis Timpany opened the day with a line that set the tone: if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. You could feel it across the site. Tradespeople from completely different trades swapping stories, families in tow, and a fair bit of friendly competition breaking out at our stand.

What builders told us about getting paid

We brought one sentence to FixFest, printed on our caps and bottles: I'm a builder, not a debt collector. We half expected a laugh. Instead, builder after builder stopped, pointed at it, and said the same two words: that's me.

Then came the stories, and they rhymed. Jobs finished months ago with invoices still open. Deposits that were promised and never arrived. Evenings meant for family lost to chasing payment and making the numbers work. Not people who are bad at the job. People who are brilliant at the job, worn down by the part that has nothing to do with building.

It wasn't just FixFest. The data says the same

A field full of anecdotes is one thing. But it matched what we found when we surveyed 200 UK contractors earlier this year:

In other words, the conversations at the punch machine were not a coincidence. They were the whole industry, in miniature.

The punch machine, the face painting and the community

We had also brought a punch machine, so all that frustration had somewhere to go. It did not get a minute's rest all weekend. Alongside it, some very serious face painting for the little ones, plenty of caps and bottles handed out, and hours of honest conversation in the sun. Safe to say the stand was never quiet.

Why this matters to us

None of what we heard should be normal. It is the reason Renno exists. The money for each stage is secured before the work starts, and released as each stage is signed off. Nothing to chase, nothing to write off. FixFest did not change our mission. It made it impossible to ignore.

Thank you, Fix Radio

A huge thank you to Louis Timpany, Hannah Webb, Lee Fifield and the entire Fix Radio team. You gave us a platform when it mattered most, and you have built something genuinely special for the trade. And to every builder who stopped by, pushed back, threw a punch, signed up on the spot, or just took a card and a chat: thank you. We heard every word. We will be back.

Build. Done. Paid.

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