Beltane Fire Festival

On the last night of April and first day of May several thousand people take to Calton Hill to have a big party marking the arrival of Summer.

This revival of the ancient Celtic fertility festival of Beltane is now in its third decade and continues to be very popular, in spite of increasing crowd-control measures and funding problems (meaning it is no longer a free event, except for under-12s, with tickets rising steadily each year since 2006).

Traditionally, Beltane was the start of the pastoral summer where animals were taken from their winter shelter to the fields. In Edinburgh's revivalist celebration, three hundred or so voluntary performers celebrate the ending of the dreich Scottish winter and the (hoped-for) season of warmth and new growth with drumming, fire performance, revelry, and a ritualised procession around the hill.

Includes some nudity and "uninhibited behaviour."

Beltane Tickets

Beltane tickets in 2011 were £6.00 (plus booking fee) available from The Hub in person or online, the Forest, or RIpping Records. A limited number of tickets were available on the night for £8.00, available only from Calton Hill's Carriage Drive entrance, on Regent Road.