Tickets are now on sale for this year's Beltane Fire Festival. The annual celebration of the arrival of summer, complete with drums and pagan ritual, returns in 2022 as a live, in-person event on Calton Hill on Saturday 30 April, organisers announced today.
The Beltane Fire Festival is a theatrical reinterpretation of an ancient Celtic celebration of the return of summer that has taken place on Edinburgh's Calton hill each year since 1988. It revolves around the lighting of the Beltane bonfire – symbolic of purification, healing and new life – and the story of the Green Man and the May Queen.
Organised by the volunteers with the not-for-profit charity Beltane Fire Society, it started as a free, by-donation event. Ticketing has been introduced in recent years as its popularity increased with up to 10,000 to 12,000 people gathering on the hill.
“Beltane is a living, breathing festival, and we are very much looking forward to bringing our community back together in person to celebrate this year, having been forced online by Covid restrictions for the last two years," said Tom Watton, Chair of the Beltane Fire Society Board.
"Beltane 2022 will be a wild, vibrant, exciting, fiery celebration involving performers from Scotland, the UK and across Europe. And we can’t wait."
Edinburgh’s Beltane celebration is still the largest of its kind in the world with revellers gathering from across the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA.
The Beltane Fire Society also celebrates other events in the traditional Celtic calendar, including Imbolc (Spring), Lughnasadh (harvest festival), and Samhuinn (the return to winter).
Pre-Covid the Samhinn Festival was also attracting huge crowds for the fiery festival.
Buying Tickets
Beltane tickets are available from Citizen Tickets and are £15 (+ £1.74 booking fee) for adults and £5 (+ £0.78 booking fee) for children under 16. There is a limited allocation of tickets for those on low incomes which are priced at £8 (+ £1.07 booking fee).