Edinburgh's Hogmanay organisers announced today that the Midnight Moment Fireworks, the climax of the three-day winter festival, will be set to music for the first time this year.
The five minute display, which will be set off from Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill, will be choreographed to a mix of four contemporary Scottish music tracks and broadcast through the Street Party, Keilidh and Concert in the Gardens.
Hogamanay organisers are not revealing what the tracks are, except to say that they are by "four of Scotland’s biggest artists who have all performed at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay over the 20 years of the event". The artists and songs are being kept a secret until midnight on the 31st.
The midnight firework display will be preceded by countdown teaser fireworks displays at 9.00pm, 10.00pm and 11.00pm. Together they amount to 2,240 firework cues, triggering 17,153 shots from 45 locations spread around Edinburgh Castle and West Princes Street Gardens.
Over 20 tonnes of equipment and 12 kilometres of control cables and wires take a team of 14 people from UK fireworks company Kimbolton six days to set up on site.
The Castle is cleared within three hours after the display so that it can open to the general public on New Year’s Day.
Alice Zitella & Alessandro Bongiorni from Rome will start the countdown to midnight on stage at the Concert in the Gardens, after winning a competition, put together by the organisers of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay and VisitScotland. The prize also includes travel to and from Edinburgh and an exclusive three-night stay in a five-star hotel in the city centre.
Tickets still available
The three-day Edinburgh's Hogmanay Festival opens with the traditional Torchlight Procession on Sunday 30 December, this year along a new route from the National Museum of Scotland to Calton Hill.
Tickets are still available for the highlight of the festival, Edinburgh's Hogmanay Street Party on Monday 31st December, which will see Princes Street turned into "the world’s largest dancefloor" with REW1ND3R. Tickets are also still available for the separately ticketed Concert in the Gardens, this year headlined by Simple Minds.
Other events on New Year’s Day include the Loony Dook at South Queensferry, the return of the popular Edinburgh’s Dogmanay and the New Year’s Day Triathlon, both in Holyrood Park and Your Lucky Day – an afternoon of public performance activities in venues across the Old Town.
This year also sees a three-day programme of day and night events in the Tron, in Edinburgh's Old Town, "A Festival of the Extraordinary".
Tourism driver
Edinburgh's Hogmanay organisers say that the event has become a key part of the tourism calendar last year welcoming over 150,000 visitors from over 60 different countries and contributing more than £30 million to the Scottish economy in 2011/2012.