On the last night of April and first day of May around 12,000 people take to Calton Hill to have a big party marking the arrival of Summer.

Beltane Fire Society celebrates the coming of summer with Edinburgh's annual Beltane Fire Festival, a revival of the ancient Celtic fertility festival.

Edinburgh's Beltane Fire Festival was created in its current form in 1988, the product of a small group of enthusiasts including the musical collective Test Department

Edinburgh's Beltane festival originates from Scottish and Irish Gaelic pre-Christian times.

With its heady brew of drums, fire, theatre and pagan ritual on the top of Calton Hill, the Beltane Fire

The festival performance begins on the Acropolis at 9.30pm, where the May Queen, symbolic of the Earth, reveals herself from within her winter retreat.

After Hogmanay, the Beltane festival is arguably the biggest party in Edinburgh's calendar.