It's time to make the long trek home from the Glastonbury Festival where the Inspire project Village Screen returned for its second year.

Audiences were treated to interactive games, films from across the UK, Inspire-project performances (have you ever worked out to Shakespearian poetry?), festival highlights, open mic sessions, news bulletins, video blogs and more. Wenlock and Mandeville also appeared on screen, helping bring the festival to life.

Despite the sad end to the English team's World Cup campaign, over the past two weeks we've seen and sometimes enjoyed that great sense of togetherness that comes from watching great sport among thousands of fellow fans. There are so many examples of how Live Sites and big screens are helping bring this and many other countries to life this summer.

For example, London kicked off the World Cup with a screening of the South African game and a party in Trafalgar Square, full of yellow and green football strips. Many of the Live Sites across the UK have been showing the football, and there are Fan Fests around the world as well as in the host nation, South Africa.

I started my World Cup viewing at the Live Site in Leicester, with thousands of local fans on a grey Friday evening, then moved on to an extraordinary FIFA World Cup Fan Fest in Berlin last week – where 500,000 (yes, half a million!) fans gathered at the Brandenburg Gate for Germany's final group game (some were even there earlier in the day for England's final group match).

Surreal is the only word to describe it... it was the day England finally started to gain momentum. And it was much the same for the German team so, with both countries poised on either the cusp of qualification or the long journey home, it was a tense day. Both games were on the six screens in the heart of Berlin. So far, so good – so why surreal?

Because, when the games were over, the 500,000-strong German crowd sang their way through football anthems – and top of their list? Three Lions, the great England song of Euro '96. Uplifting, hard-to-believe, exciting, extraordinary...

But there are other sports besides football, and Wimbledon has long been a staple diet of big screens around the UK. Every year there are new tennis roadshows and interactive games on and around the screens – this year, there's a student-developed game in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth from the University's School of Creative Technologies.

Still, it's South Africa that is pretty much the focus at the moment, even at Glastonbury where two special 'Football Fields' were created for the England v Germany showdown. And what a place to be!

In temperatures approaching 30 degrees celsius, what seemed like 60,000 die-hard festival-goers suspended their pursuit of the best of musical culture for 90 nail-biting minutes. And then it was back to the festival closing party, where Stevie Wonder made everyone feel better.

There may be no more England matches now, and Glastonbury has come to an end, but the World Cup goes on. Thanks to all the film-makers across the nations and regions of the UK who contributed to Village Screen 2010, and to all the digital artists who created special entertainment to engage with viewers. Most of all, thank you to the audiences who took part. We hope to see you again next year for a taste of the Games-time activities slated for 2012!