“Welcome back to live performance, welcome back to your Festival.”

The Edinburgh International Festival will welcome audiences back to live performance with temporary outdoor pavilions throughout the city this summer:

We are thrilled to announce our reimagined Festival for 2021, marking the return of live performance to Scotland’s capital city after over a year of silenced theatres and concert halls.

Taking place from 7 to 29 August, the 2021 International Festival will use bespoke, temporary outdoor pavilions in iconic, easily accessible spaces throughout the city to safely reunite our artists and audiences to rediscover the magic of live performance.

Our temporary outdoor pavilions, found at three locations including Edinburgh Park and the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad, will feature covered concert stages and socially distanced seating to create a beautiful setting for audiences to safely enjoy live music, opera and theatre once more.

The health and safety of the entire Festival community is at the heart of our plans for this year’s festival. That’s why we are working with the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and other relevant authorities to implement appropriate Covid safety measures.

These will include shorter performances with no intervals, physical distancing, regular cleaning and contactless ticketing.

We will publish full details of our security and safety measures in the coming months.

While we are looking forward to the prospect of bringing the Festival City to life once more, we appreciate that not everyone will be able to attend our performances in person this year.

To ensure that everyone can enjoy a slice of the magic, wherever they are in the world, we will release a selection of high-quality streamed performances, free of charge, during each week of the Festival.

Since Edinburgh’s summer festivals in 2020 were officially cancelled a year ago, we have received extraordinary support from so many people.

As our Festival Director Fergus Linehan says, “We are hugely grateful to the artists who have agreed to come on this journey with us, the stakeholders, donors, and sponsors who have stood by us through a tough year and our audiences who have cheered us along throughout. We look forward to sharing full details of the programme in early June.”

Full details of our 2021 programme, which spans opera, orchestral and chamber music, theatre and contemporary music, will be announced on Wednesday 2 June.

Priority booking for International Festival members opens on Tuesday 1 June before general booking opens on Friday 11 June.

Welcome Back

We are delighted to announce that in August 2021, the Edinburgh International Festival will return to live performance.

Connecting with others is more crucial now than ever. For that reason, we have continued to engage with communities across Edinburgh and further afield during the pandemic, bringing performances and opportunities to schools, families and socially isolated people. These projects are an integral part of the International Festival’s identity, and we will continue them and expand their scope as 2021 progresses.

We are proud of the streamed and broadcast works we have brought you over the past year. These projects have helped us experiment and evolve, and they will continue as a vital element in our work and engagement. But a Festival is at its heart a gathering, a celebration of community and shared purpose. The time is right to take the first careful steps back to live performance.

We are hugely grateful to the artists who are coming on this journey with us; to the stakeholders, donors and sponsors who have stood by us through a tough year; and to our audiences who have cheered us along throughout. We are excited by the prospect of seeing you all at the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival.

Welcome back to your Festival!

The International Festival team

LA Phil at Tynecastle: ‘The Soundtrack Of Our Lives’

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra got the Edinburgh International Festival off to a thrilling start last night with an opening concert featuring music from the Holywood movies. Continue reading LA Phil at Tynecastle: ‘The Soundtrack Of Our Lives’

Thousands of Free Tickets Released for Edinburgh International Festival’s Tynecastle Concert

  • Free tickets are available from 10am today for the 15,000 capacity Aberdeen Standard Investments Opening Event: LA Phil at Tynecastle, the spectacular opening of the Edinburgh festival season;
  • Celebrating its 100th anniversary the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and legendary conductor Gustavo Dudamel perform at Edinburgh’s Tynecastle Stadium on Friday 2 August at 7pm;
  • Family-friendly programme unveiled, featuring film music from Hollywood’s Golden Age – such as Vertigo and Casablanca – as well as a selection of much-loved John Williams soundtracks, including Harry Potter series, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Jaws and E.T.;
  • Edinburgh International Festival’s ambitious engagement programme includes a family-friendly community event organised by Tynecastle High School students and Gorgie’s very own Walk of Fame;
  • Edinburgh International Festival is delighted to continue the sponsorship partnership with Aberdeen Standard Investments and to have the ongoing support of EventScotland.

Today, the Edinburgh International Festival releases thousands of tickets for the completely free 15,000 capacity Aberdeen Standard Investments Opening Event: LA Phil at Tynecastle. The tickets are available from 10am at www.eif.co.uk. Continue reading Thousands of Free Tickets Released for Edinburgh International Festival’s Tynecastle Concert

Audience Engagement Survey: chance to win £50 voucher

Did you attend any events at this summer’s Edinburgh International Festival? If so, the organisers would like to hear from you – and you could be in with a chance of winning a £50 voucher too.

Click on the survey link below to take part:

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/AudienceEngagement-Survey

Anyone who completes the survey will be given the chance to win a £50 Voucher for a shop/outlet of their choice so please do encourage people to give their feedback and enter the prize draw.

The deadline for survey responses is Wednesday 26th September.

 

Edinburgh’s Festivals: our ‘gift to the world’

The 71st August Festivals are here with hundreds of musicians, dancers, actors and comedians taking to the stage for the first time this weekend. This year, more than 50,000 performances of more than 5,000 shows will take place in approximately 500 venues across the Tattoo, Fringe, Book, Art and International Festivals. Continue reading Edinburgh’s Festivals: our ‘gift to the world’

Five Telegrams: free tickets and transport for North Edinburgh’s young people

Five Telegrams is a unique collaboration between Anna Meredith, one of the country’s most exciting contemporary composers – widely acclaimed for her album Varmints, which seamlessly crosses classical and pop – and 59 Productions, the Tony Award-winning design company whose work includes the London 2012 Opening Ceremony and the National Theatre smash hit War Horse. Continue reading Five Telegrams: free tickets and transport for North Edinburgh’s young people

Edinburgh International Festival offers free tickets to North Edinburgh’s young people

Friday 3 August: Five Telegrams opens Edinburgh International Festival

Edinburgh International Festival is encouraging young people from North Edinburgh to share in the opening night excitement of a groundbreaking perormance. Free tickets are available for ‘Five Telegrams‘ at The Usher Hall – and free transport to and from the event is available through North Edinburgh Arts too! Continue reading Edinburgh International Festival offers free tickets to North Edinburgh’s young people