Edinburgh’s grass roots arts festival, Hidden Door, is set to transform a huge abandoned industrial site into an ambitious and unique multi artform experience.
Responding to the vast complex of forgotten warehouses, factory floors, offices and outbuildings, this year’s Hidden Door festival programme is built around the theme of ‘Building as a Myth’, with every rusted pipe, defunct machine and weathered surface becoming part of an artistic reclamation.
From Wednesday 11 – Sunday 15 June 2025, the festival brings together the talents of more than 100 creatives to offer live music, immersive art installations, dance performances, poetry, spoken word, unique collaborations and much more.
Music
The five nights will host a diverse roster of acts, kicking off with an unmissable opening night offering energetic and theatrical fare from Bikini Body, Mermaid Chunky and Snapped Ankles.
Thursday brings punk/pop attitude with Witch Fever, Sprints and SISTER MADDS, whilst Friday night sees Alice Faye’s lyrical Cabaret-come-Queen stylings programmed alongside Hidden Door favourites Tinderbox Orchestra and the dreamlike compositions of Erland Cooper.
No Windows, The Orielles and Katy J Pearson promise an alternative indie Saturday night to remember, with Sunday’s closing line-up welcoming Moor Mother’s poetic power alongside Bee Asha, MC Yallah & Debmaster and Ishmael Ensemble’s eclectic jazz infused energy.
Edinburgh institutions Samedia Shebeen and Paradise Palms Records are on board to bring the weekend club vibes, and an open call will shortly be launched to invite emerging local talent to join the line-up.
Other acts confirmed so far include Isabella Strange, Pearling, Roller Disco Death Party, Smag På Dig Selv, The Orielles, Theo Bleak, Tina Sandwich and Y with many more to come.
Visual Art
In true Hidden Door style, the visual art programme will make the most of the unique setting, inviting audiences to explore and discover every nook and cranny of The Paper Factory – from the cavernous Crane Shed and the labyrinthine Factory Floor, to transforming the mundanity of The Office Block.
Over 30 visual artists will show a range of work including large sculptural installations, wall-based work, projection and textiles, curated amongst the defunct machinery and spaces.
The visual artists confirmed so far include Adam Hogarth, April Lannigan, Claire Marion Black, David Lemm, Dorsey Kaufmann, Ewan Douglas, Felicity Saravia White, Gosia Walton, Iona Peterson, Izzy Osborn, Jackie Bell, Jo McDonald, Juliana Capes, Laura McGlinchey, Lucas Chih-Peng Kao, Lucy Mulholland, Molly Wickett, Muireann Nic an Bheatha, Olivier Jacques Julien, Paul Meikle, Sam Sharma, Silas T Parry, Sue Sim, Tom Fairlamb, Valerie Reid, Vicky Higginson and Waad AlBawardi.
Poetry and Spoken Word
Thought provoking, personal, funny and moving – this year’s programme brings the power of spoken word performance into a building that has fallen silent; the factory’s atmospheric chambers echoing with the voices of raw human expression. Expect stand out shows every night from 10 poets and performers including award winning Theresa Muñoz, Glasgow poet Charles Lang and post-punk-music-spoken word-comedy duo FEVER PEACH.
The spoken word programme also includes Aileen Lees, Imogen Stirling, Josh Cake, Julia Sorensen, Sarah Forbes Stewart, Theresa Muñoz and Victoria McNulty.
Dance
Expect dance at its most unconventional as Hidden Door presents a programme like no other in remarkable surroundings. Highlights include Yuxi Jiang’s ‘The Circle Unbound’, an immersive dance theatre inspired by Tibetan Buddhist circular culture, reimagining rhythmic machinery as a meditative force.
Participatory and playful performance ‘Dance Makes The Floor’ by Mark Bleakley centres around the creation of a collectively made dance floor, conjuring past dance floors, both loved and lost.
The dance programme will also feature works by ELELEI, Jessie Roberts-Smith, Katie Armstrong, Dorine Mugisha with even more to be announced.
Creative Collaborations
Threading throughout the 2025 programme are four newly commissioned interdisciplinary collaborations, waiting to be encountered by visitors as they explore The Paper Factory’s labyrinths. Visionaries from radically different disciplines – from electronic musicians and installation artists to contemporary dancers and theatrical innovators – have been challenged to create something that could only exist in this distinct moment and place.
Appearing each night of the festival, these utterly unique multi- disciplinary projects are not to be missed.
‘Ghost in the Machine’ is a site-responsive performance developed by Jill Martin Boualaxai, exploring memory, transformation, and industrial folklore through movement, drawing, and sculptural installation. The piece blends physical theatre, dance, visual art, and costume, evolving over time into performance drawings and sculptural traces that blur the boundaries between ritual, history, and the factory’s own mythology.
‘Time and Memory’ presents a narrative-driven installation by Eszter Marsalkó, featuring Stephanie Lamprea, exploring the lives of the factory’s former workers, weaving together real and imagined stories. This project includes film footage of the site, archival materials, and sculptural elements, bringing the past into dialogue with the present. It connects with broader festival themes of industry, labour, and personal histories embedded in place.
‘A Production Line’ by Acolyte is a poetic and psychedelic ensemble, blending soundscapes, spoken word, and rhythmic loops to reflect factory production cycles. Featuring bassist Ruairidh Morrison, synth and vocals by Gloria Black, percussion by Daniel Hill, and poet Iona Lee, the performance mirrors the repetitive rhythms of labour, incorporating field recordings from the site and hypnotic musical structures to create an immersive, trance-like experience.
‘SPECTRAL’ brings immersive dance and aerial performance to the Crane Shed, a work by Tess Letham developed in collaboration with All or Nothing. Performers move fluidly between floor-based choreography and aerial movement, embodying the physicality of labour and its transformation into something transcendent. Featuring lighting design by Sam Jones, aerial choreography, and a live music set by Dave House, SPECTRAL is a visually striking and physically immersive experience.
Film work created by Abby Warlow and Lewis Gourlay will be projected across the factory’s vast walls to bring moving image and cinematic storytelling to the Paper Factory.
Ticket prices for all
With an ongoing commitment to inclusivity, Hidden Door has expanded its concessionary ticket options, ensuring that financial barriers and accessibility won’t prevent anyone from experiencing the event:
- As always, the festival will be free to attend each day until 6pm
- D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people are entitled to 30% off the standard price ticket for each price tier
- Anyone who is currently unemployed can also benefit from the 30% discount
- Students and those under 26 are entitled to 20% off, whilst over 65s can claim 10% off the standard price ticket
- And going even further to include as many people as possible, for those who need them, a limited number of “Pay What You Can” tickets are available for every evening.
Creative partnerships
Hidden Door is proud to partner with valued sponsors Artisan Roast and Bellfield Brewery, who will both craft limited-edition Hidden Door brews that will capture the spirit of artistic collaboration. Elsewhere, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee-inspired music stage will transport audiences to another continent.
Hidden Door gratefully acknowledges the support of Creative Scotland and other funders who continue to make this ambitious and unique celebration of creativity possible.
About The Paper Factory
The colossal 15.5-acre Paper Factory site sits in Edinburgh’s Maybury Quarter, a former paper and cardboard manufacturing facility on the western edge of the city. The site features a mix of warehouses, factory floors, offices and outhouses.
The site is well served by a variety of public transport links, with frequent bus, tram and train services all stopping nearby, making it easy to reach from anywhere in the city or beyond to the west and Glasgow.
The full address is 1 Turnhouse Road, Edinburgh EH12 8NP.
Hazel Johnson, Festival Director of Hidden Door, said: “Since November’s venue launch party, we’ve been busy clearing more of the vast industrial site and getting ready to fill every corner with our most ambitious programme yet.
“We exist to support the creative community and to connect audiences with emerging artists, and The Paper Factory will be at the heart of that ambition in 2025.”
The Paper Factory is located in the Maybury Quarter, a 15.5-acre site occupied by the former Saica paper and cardboard manufacturing facility on the western edge of Edinburgh. The site features a mix of warehouses, factory floors, offices and outhouses. Bounded by the Edinburgh Gateway tram and rail station, there are excellent transport links to the city centre as well as to Glasgow and the west.
Hidden Door will transform the entire site for a full-scale multi arts festival. The property has been empty since Saica’s relocation to a purpose-built facility in Livingston. Regeneration specialists Summix Capital are now developing proposals for the future of the site, and have offered Hidden Door access until the end of 2025.
Jill Martin Boualaxai, Creative Lead, said: “Our 2025 festival program, titled ‘The Building as a Myth,’ invites artists to collaboratively develop ambitious multidisciplinary projects.
“Guided by the overarching concepts of Transformation and Reclamation, Time and Memory, Rituals and New Narratives, and Feminisation and Reimagining the Space, the programme encourages exploration of how industrial spaces can be reclaimed by nature, layered with temporal narratives, and reimagined as inclusive, symbolic environments.”