Here’s our pick of where and when to seek out the best Scottish culture in Edinburgh over the next few days.
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Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival is traditionally launched with a torchlight procession through the city centre. (Image: Andy Catlin)
Torchlight procession, The Meadows to Castle Terrace, December 29
The traditional curtain-raiser for Edinburgh’s new year festivities has changed routes a few times since it was first staged more than 30 years ago when the Hogmanay festival was launched but has retained its huge popularity with both locals and first-time visitors to the city.
Pipers, drummers, fire performers and visiting Vikings from the Shetland South Mainland Up Helly Aa fire festival will lead a 15,000-strong parade through from The Meadows to Castle Terrace, via Middle Meadow Walk, George IV Bridge and the Lawnmarket before the river of fire they will be creating runs beneath Edinburgh Castle.
The Assembly Rooms will be hosting events throughout Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival. (Image: Cameron Brisbane)
Vitamin C, Assembly Rooms, December 29
After rounding off the previous Hogmanay festival with a seaside shindig in Portobello, Vic Galloway and Andy Wake will be hosting the official opening night party at the Assembly Rooms.
Two of Edinburgh’s leading indie-rock outfits Swim School and Waverley will have been lined up for the event, which will also feature a guest DJ set from Mogwai guitarist Stuart Braithwaite.
Rock’n’roll, psych, cosmic disco, soul and funk are all promised by the festival, along with a possible glimpse of the visiting pipers, drummer and Shetland Vikings who will be leading the torchlight parade through the city earlier in the evening.
The Usher Hall is hosting some of the biggest indoor events during Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival. (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)
The Music of Zimmer vs Williams, Usher Hall, December 29
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra brings to life the scores of two of the greatest film composers in cinematic history.
Festival season favourites like The Holiday, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and Harry Potter will go head-to-head with anthems from Star Wars, War Horse, Pirates of the Caribbean and Interstellar.
Conductor Michael Bawtree will take centre stage before the 70-strong orchestra for an event billed as “a cinematic battle of epic proportions”.
Jay Lafferty will be one of the headliners at The Stand Comedy Club’s Hogmanay specials.
Hogmanay Special, Stand Comedy Club, nightly till December 31
The Stand rounds off its 30th anniversary year with a run of shows bringing together some of the best-known performers to grace its stage in recent years.
Jay Lafferty, Ray Bradshaw and Jim Smith will be among the headliners in a rotating line-up of guests which will also include Vladimar McTavish, Ayo Adenekan, Joe Heenan, Julia Sutherland, Stu Murphy and Pru Brake.
Comperes Susan Morrison and Jojo Sutherland will be holding the fort at the York Place club during the two-hour shows.
Trailblazing folk trio Lau will be appearing at St Giles’ Cathedral on December 30. (Image: Archant)
Lau, St Giles Cathedral, December 30
More than 20 years after being formed around a kitchen table in Edinburgh, the trailblazing folk trio Lau have since been at the heart countless Hogmanay festivals in the city, collectively and individually.
Singer and guitarist Kris Drever, accordionist Martin Green and fiddler Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle) will be staging a stripped-back candlelit show in one of Edinburgh’s most atmospheric venues.
Ticketholders will be able to make a donation to the Medical Aid for Palestinians charity on the night.
Susie McCabe is hosting the Ho-Ho-Hogmanay night at the Assembly Rooms on December 30. (Image: Colin Mearns)
Ho-Ho-Hogmanay, Assembly Rooms, December 30
One of the longest-running Fringe venues will be briefly turned into a comedy club again to round off the official “Night Afore” festivities in the city centre.
The Fringe favourite, who has been hosting the Concert in the Gardens in recent years, will also be guiding the pre-Hogmanay crowd through 90 minutes of stand-up.
Fellow Glasgow comics Christopher McArthur-Boyd and Larry Dean will be joined by rising Edinburgh-based star Aye Adenekan, who sold out his debut Fringe show this year and also won two festival awards into the bargain.
Peat & Diesel will be staging a headline show in West Princes Street Gardens as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival. (Image: Celtic Connections)
Peat & Diesel, West Princes Street Gardens, December 30
Hebridean hellraisers Peat & Diesel will start the year the way they finished it – with one of their biggest shows to date.
The Stornoway band staged the first ever concert at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow as part of the city’s Celtic Connections festival last January.
Now the festival favourites, who stage their own annual event in the Highlands in the summer, will be headlining the “Night Afore” festivities in the Scottish capital. Maverick Ullapool accordionist Ruairidh Maclean, who previously toured with Peat & Diesel, will be reuniting with the band in Edinburgh to warm up the crowds.
Hamish Hawk will be appearing at the Concert in the Gardens as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival.
Hamish Hawk, West Princes Street Gardens, December 31
The profile of the Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter has risen dramatically over the last few years, which has seen him release critically-acclaimed albums, support the likes of The Proclaimers, Travis and Simple Minds, and storm venues like Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow with his own shows.
Hawk has toured all over Europe this year, with his summer festival schedule including a memorable homecoming double-header at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for an intimate live show paying homage to the Scottish poet and musician Ivor Cutler, which has just been released as a live album.
Hawk will be rounding off the year in style at the Hogmanay festival’s flagship Concert in the Gardens, performing between Glasgow indie-rock outfit Lucia and the Best Boys and Grammy and Brit Award winners Wet Leg.
Tinderbox Orchestra with Kathryn Joseph, James Emmannuel and Rachel Sermanni, St Giles’ Cathedral, New Year’s Day.
The profile of Edinburgh-based music-making charity Tinderbox reached new heights in 2025 after they joined forces with Ed Sheeran to stage a series of special visits to music projects in north Edinburgh.
Tinderbox’s orchestra, which has already wowed audiences at the Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe and Hidden Door in the Scottish capital, will be starting 2026 with a special show in one of the most popular venues in the First Footin’ line-up.
Their special St Giles’ Cathedral show will feature guest appearances from three of Scotland’s most acclaimed singing talents, Kathryn Joseph, James Emmannuel and Rachel Sermanni.
Turner in January, National Gallery, from New Year’s Day
A new year tradition dating back more than century in Edinburgh is a visit to the National Gallery for its annual display of watercolours by one of Britain’s most celebrated landscape artists, Joseph Mallord William Turner.
Art collector Henry Vaughan gifted 38 of Turner’s works to the National Galleries of Scotland in 1900 on condition that they should only go on display in January so they were not over-exposed to natural light, has ensured that the works, which date back almost 200 years, still retain a “freshness and intensity of colour”.
Born in 1775, Turner’s career spanned more than 50 years and saw him travel extensively across Britain, into Europe and further afield.
The Vaughan bequest includes scenes of the Himalayas, Venice and the Swiss Alps, as well as Scottish landscapes, including Loch Coruisk on the Isle of Skye and Melrose in the Borders.
Viennese New Year, Usher Hall, New Year’s Day
A chance to start the 2026 in style as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s recreation of a traditional Viennese year year celebration.
The music of Austrian composers Johann Straus, Rudolf Sieczynski and Franz Schubert will take centre stage in this matinee concert, including the Blue Danube Waltz, Tales from the Vienna Woods and the Die Fledermaus Overture.
Conductor Andrew Manze will guide the audience through the performance, which will also feature Scottish soprano Rachel Redmond.
Muckle Be The Light, Portobello Town Hall, New Year’s Day
The poet, author and spoken word performers Michael Pedersen has been at the heart of Edinburgh’s cultural life since he launched the arts collective Neu! Reekie! with the writer publisher Kevin Williamson in 2010.
Although their trailblazing live shows ended in 2022 when the pair decided to put Neu! Reekie! on hiatus, Pedersen has since continued staging events, during a two-year spell as writer-in-residence at Edinburgh University and since being appointed as Edinburgh’s poet laureate, or Makar.
After a year in which he release his debut novel, Pedersen will start 2026 hosting his own chat show in his native Portobello with Garbage singer Shirley Manson, who is expected to front the band’s final concert in her home city in the summer at Edinburgh Castle Esplanade.
Their special guests including Teenage Fanclub frontman Norman Blake, who will be performing a special set of songs, and former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has regularly shared a stage with Pedersen in recent years.
