Edinburgh’s Hogmanay returns for its three-day bash at the end of December to welcome in 2013. As in previous years, the highlight of the festivities, running from 30 December to 1 January, will be the Hogmanay Street Party for 80,000 people on New Year’s Eve.
Long-running West Coast band Simple Minds are headlining the Concert in Gardens, backed up by Scottish indie band The View and local band Bwani Junction.
The street party (excluding the Gardens and the Keilidh) is this year a three-stage affair with two of them live music stages. None of the stages are on Princes Street due to restrictions caused by the Edinburgh tram works. The Scottish stage is situated, for the first time, on Frederick street, the Waverley Stage is on Waverley Bridge, and a DJ stage will be set up half way up the Mound, beneath Assembly Hall.
Mercury Prize nominees The Maccabees headline the Waverley stage supported by Reverend and the Makers and by The OK Social Club. The Scottish Stage features Indie-folk sextet Admiral Fallow, Lau and Shooglenifty.
The DJ stage, meanwhile, will be relaying music and video over speakers and big screens the length of Princes Street for the four-hour duration of the street party.
In keeping with the “be lucky” theme of year ‘13, music will be selected from 60 years of pop music, from 1953 to 2013, by a Wheel of Fortune. Organisers promise ‘Rew1nd3r’, which is compiled and created by DJ Swiss along with VJ’s Buttercup and Pixels, will create “the world’s biggest open air nightclub” on Princes Street.
There are eight screens the length of Princes Street, as well as one at the DJ Stage and two more at the Ross Theatre in Princes Street Gardens.
“The Rew1nd3r is a bold and exciting development and we think it raises the bar as well as the spirit and temperature," said Unique Events Pete Irvine, Artistic Director of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. "We’re looking forward to a very hot night in our possibly cold, but as always, cool city.”
For those wanting more traditional Scottish dance, the always popular Keilidh on Mound Precinct will be birling through the bells to The Brechin City Rollers, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Haircut and Ceildhdonia.
Both the Keilidh and the Concert in the Gardens are "parties within the street party" requiring additional tickets. They bring the total number of stages to five.
As well as the midnight fireworks set off from the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, this year will also see smaller countdown fireworks displays at 9pm, 10pm and 11pm on the 31st.
Free bus transport home throughout the city will be available for revellers at the Street Party.
New route for Torchlight Procession
Edinburgh’s Hogmanay launches on Sunday 30 December with a new route for the Torchlight Procession.
The new route, avoiding the tramworks on Princes Street, will see up to 25,000 people process from outside the National Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street, over North Bridge, along Waterloo Place and up onto Calton Hill for a Son et Lumière show and fireworks finale. Over 7,000 torchbearers are expected. They will be led by massed pipes and drums and the Up Helly Aa’ Vikings from Shetland.
Continuing with the theme of luck, artists Walker & Bromwich will launch an interpretation of The Goddess Fortuna in the Hawthornden Court at the National Museum of Scotland. The installation, which is funded by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund, is free to the public from the 30th December until Tuesday 1 January 2013. The participatory artwork is "designed to bestow luck on those who take part."
New Year, Mair Luck
Last year Hogmanay introduced artist-led competitive games, New Year Games. This year elaborates on that idea with Your Lucky Day, another free event where participants, starting at the National Museum of Scotland, roll the dice to negotiate a route via 13 venues around the Old Town.
Theatre, spoken word, musical performances and a lucky tearoom feature in venues that include Greyfriars Kirk, The City Art Centre, The Roxy Hall and The Hub.
After visiting several performance destinations, Your Lucky Day culminates at Destination 13 with a street theatre show by French company Plasticiens Volants. The performance, Big Bang, animates the history of the world from the present day back to the creation of the universe.
Other New Year’s Day events include the Loony Dook – the annual icey dip in the River Forth – which will start off with a Dookers Parade piped through South Queensferry.
As previously announced, the New Year's Day Triathlon and Edinburgh’s Dogmanay are also returning on New Year’s Day.
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