Edinburgh's annual Beltane Fire Festival has gone on sale, here's where to get tickets

The festival, which kick starts the Capital’s summer season brings a vivid display of fire play, acrobatics, drumming, and immersive theatre to the city. This year’s event, on 30 April, will once again offer a modern interpretation of the ancient Celtic holiday Beltane, where traditional communities marked the end of Winter with their own fiery rituals.

With 300 performers set to take part, and a capacity of 8,000 on the top of the Calton Hill, the Beltane Fire Festival is the largest event of its kind in Europe. It tells the story of the transition from Winter to Summer, which can only happen when the Green Man, an archetypal figure in folklore all over the UK, dies and is reborn. He does so in order to shake off the last remnants of Winter so that he can join the May Queen, a goddess figure, as her consort.

The story has variations on it each year, but at its core contains messages about celebrating community and retaining ties with our natural world. Following on from last year’s eco-themed festival, where the May Queen departed from her usual stoic character to express rage at the damage done to our planet, some elements of this year’s Beltane Fire Festival will continue to look at the global climate crisis.

This year will be the last that Katie O’Neill embodies the summer goddess, and her performance, which will be developed over the next few weeks, will move from anger to an aspirational note about what positive climate action can achieve.

Festival organisers have spent the past few months putting these themes in their storytelling into concrete practice. In December last year Beltane Fire Society announced that £1,000 had been donated from Samhuinn Fire Festival’s proceeds to environmental charities, with £150 going to Tree Time Edinburgh, £250 to the Scottish Wildlife Trust and £250 to the Marine Conservation Society.

They also donated £232 to Trees for Life, where Beltane Fire Society has planted 43 trees collectively named the Beltane Fire Grove. The society also pledged £1,000 to green charities again from the proceeds generated by this year's event, on top of the 5% from each ticket sale donated by Citizen Ticket to fund tree planting initiatives.

Brad Mcarthur, chair of Beltane Fire Society’s board, says, “We’ve seen our festivals go from strength to strength in the past few years, with Samhuinn Fire Festival now drawing huge crowds to Calton Hill and Beltane Fire Festival receiving great support last year for its climate-focused performance. While preparations for this year’s Beltane Fire Festival are just beginning, we’re excited to see what adventures the festival will bring. Our volunteers are already buzzing with ideas and we look forward to seeing what creative contemporary vision they will bring to Beltane’s ancient traditions.”

Beltane Fire Festival 2020 take place on 30 April with gates open at 8pm. The event begins at sundown and ends at midnight.

Ticket prices are £11.00 before 30 April, £15 on 30 April, £5.50 for children aged 2-16 with children under two going free. Limited low-income tickets are available at £5.50. All tickets are available from www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/beltane-fire-society/beltane-fire-festival-2020/