SNACK Picks (November 2025)

We’ve gathered some of our upcoming picks of the best things to do across Scotland in November. We’ve music, poetry and film festivals, special nights celebrating our one of our favourite modern composers (Steve Reich), both challenging and accessible visual art, and a whole lot more.

You’d think things might slow down a wee bit in November, but no. The leaves may be mostly blown from the trees. The weather forecast might have a solid 7 days of rain forecast for the next week. You have almost definitely dragged last year’s warm coat out of the cupboard by now. Your summer shoes, soggy and water stained, have almost certainly proved no match for the Scottish Autumn. But us Scots are a hardy lot and we’ll push past, as we always do.

Besides, as yer granny might have it: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only innapropriate clothing.

Let us know on our socials (Instagram is our main) if there’s suggestions you think we shouldn’t miss.

Black History Month Scotland

Where: Various venues

When: 1st October till 1st November

Black History Month Scotland, organised by CRER since 2001, runs from 1st October to 1st November 2025 with over 70 events from more than 40 providers. Its mission is to celebrate and educate about the significant contributions African, Caribbean, Asian, and other adversely racialised communities have made to Scotland’s historyand culture, with radical honesty about a pastintertwined with slavery and colonialism.

This year’s #BHM25 theme, Resistance & Resilience, explores how Black communities have propped up Scotland and the UK’s success without due reparations. Despite legal inequities andracism’s ripple effects, Black groups have created cultural, artistic, and social legacies that thrive.

The programme’s visual artwork, by Glasgow based Christian Noelle Charles, captures this: hands reaching up, transforming into pathways– presumably a metaphor for forging one’s own way.The programme includes talks, film screenings, exhibitions, performances, workshops, heritage tours, and community events. Standout events include It Wisnae Us: The Truth about Glasgow and Slavery (revealing Glasgow’s slave tradelinks), Parallel Lives, Worlds Apart (using costume and archives to tell stories of Grenada and colonial history), and Consuming History (celebrating Caribbean food history as joy and resistance)– both at Paxton House – plus family-friendly storytelling and craft workshops.

Many events are free, spanning venues across Glasgow, Dundee, and national museums.

Find out more about Black History Month Scotland

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Edinburgh Short Film Festival 2025

Where: Filmhouse, Edinburgh

When: 7th till 16th November

The Edinburgh Short Film Festival is always a treat, and this year looks to be as precious an experience as ever. From Locarno and HotDocs Jury winners, alongside winners and nominees from a host of international film festivals, including Venice, Cannes, the Berlinale, New York, Melbourne, Festival Regard and Athens, as well as the best Scottish and UK short films of 2025.

There’s guest programmes from the Vilnius Short Film Festival, Lithuanian shorts, Shortcutz Amsterdam’s fascinating Amsterthem doc project, and their regular Scottish Shorts night returns. Don’t miss Jan Harlan, Stanley Kubrick’s producer, presenting a masterclass where he’ll be sharing his and Kubrick’s filmmaking insights for young and upand- coming filmmakers.

Get tickets for Edinburgh Short Film Festival 2025

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Steve Reich+ (Scottish Chamber Orchestra)

Where/when:

6th November, The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
7th November, City Halls, Glasgow

OK, this will be a treat. In performances directed by Reich’s close friend and trusted collaborator, Edinburgh-born Colin Currie, Scottish Chamber Orchestra will perform minimalist masterpieces from the visionary US maverick composer. Combining mesmerising power, galvanising rhythm, and entrancing harmony: Reich’s ‘Runner’ is a rich and bright tribute to raw energy, while the mesmerising ‘Double Sextet’ won Reich the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

To begin the evening, Currie is the soloist in the propulsive, modern-day Baroque percussion concerto ‘Snowblind’, written by Elbow and James collaborator Joe Duddell. Scottish composer Helen Grime charts an evocative journey from source to sea with ‘River’. Jamie Pettinger will be DJing in the foyer before and after the concert.

Get tickets to Steve Reich +

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GLOSS (Glasgow Library of Synthesized Sound)

Where: 5 Florence Street, G5 0YX

When: 21st November 7pm-10pm

Do you know what GLOSS is?

Glasgow Library of Synthesized Sound CIC (Community Interest Company) or ‘GLOSS’ is the UK’s first electronic music library. They are a non-profit, artist-led & community-based organisation, providing access to electronic music gear, instruments, education, workshops, performances and more. 

Sounds ace, right?

They’re finally opening their doors to the public and this event will see debut performances from:

PLEIN SOLEIL

Plein Soleil is a brand new collaboration between artist and filmmaker Luke Fowler and drummer/producer Paul Thomson. Blurring experimental sound, rhythm and texture, they’ll be unveiling their debut performance at the GLOSS launch party.

GROUP 2B

Formed during ITEM workshops this summer, GROUP 2B brings together eight distinct voices from Glasgow’s creative scene – Jamie Crewe, Alliyah Enyo, Giuseppe Mistretta, Kim Moore, Matt Robin, Myles Westman, Rachel Wilson and Mitchell Morrison – to present a collective whose work spans subterranean textures, warped r’n’b and otherworldly bangers using voice, bass guitar and electronics.

Over the summer at La Chunky Studios they recorded an incredible collection of new material in various different configurations, and this launch party will be the collective’s debut live performance.

DJs

EMMA DIAMOND (Spritz Editions)
DJ BOBO JR

Doors at 7pm – music starts soon after. 

See you there?

www.gloss.scot

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Push The Boat Out

Where: Pleasance, Edinburgh

When: 20th till 23rd November

This year’s edition of PTBO, Poetry is Punk, promises (or perhaps threatens!) to hold no punches this time around, spotlighting more than 120 carefully selected musicians, poets, and genre-blurrers who have been making their way up in the UK arts scene via a knack for ingenuity and soulful performance.

As one would hope and expect in our world’s current political climate, this year’s selection seems to skew towards the humanitarian, with Amnesty International as a primary partner.

Above all, PTBO seems to be on a mission this year to find the sweet spot between sponsoring thought-provoking material engineered to be a bit uncomfortable, and creating a welcoming environment for all – poetry aficionado or openminded newcomer.

Find out more and get your tickets for Push The Boat Out

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Soundhouse Winter Festival

Where: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

When: 27th November till 1st December

Back for its second year, Soundhouse’s Winter Festival puts brilliant Scotland-based artists at its heart. There’s a clutch of SNACK favourites on the bill (Constant Follower, Bee Asha, Dara Dubh) and loads more we’re keen to discover at this year’s fest at the Traverse. We caught a stripped-back glimpse of Graeme Stephen’s score for classic 1927 film Metropolis at the festival’s launch night and can confirm the festival performance can be nothing but incredible in its fullness, in sync with the movie and and complete with The Fiona Winning Quartet.

Find out more about Soundhouse Winter Fesival and buy tickets

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Keepsake

When: 4th October till 14th December

Where: Cample Line, Dumfriesshire

Cample Line, the independent arts organisation tucked away in Thornhill, is home to a wide programme of contemporary art and film. This autumn, it will be presenting Keepsake by Argentinian artist Amalia Pica. The show, which has been created using simple materials and found objects, serves to explore shared moments – learning, protesting, celebrating, working, even playing.

As well as embroideries and bronze sculpture work, a new piece called ‘134 Years of Smoke’ has been made, in collaboration with filmmaker Rafael Ortega.

Most enthralling is Pica’s ‘Daisy Chain’ – 40 metres of daisies made by the Cample Line team, visitors, and local schoolchildren. The chain is a physical manifestation of the way people from all walks of life can be brought together – a precious sentiment to dwell on in our somewhat divergent times.

Find out more about Keepsake

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The Milky Way: Feed

Where: GOMA, Glasgow

When: 13th September 2025 till 9th January

As part of its tour across the UK, The Milky Way is landing at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, and has inspired a dedicated programme promoting infant feeding in public spaces.

Facilitated by Feed, an arts-based project that promotes inclusive, sustainable approaches to infant feeding, The Milky Way primarily features a feeding chair and multimedia artwork, which has already been shown in Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham and Cardiff.

With Glasgow as its only Scottish stop, GoMA has created both a publication with Mammas Write and a new commission, by Jessica Ramm, to work alongside it. Parents and carers are welcome to interact with the space and to claim the art as a space to breast, chest, or bottlefeed their baby.

Find our more about The Milky way at Glasgow Modern Art Gallery (GOMA)

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Ignorant Art School (Rebels in Action)

Where: Cooper Gallery, Dundee

When: 10th October till 13th December

Cooper Gallery, connected to the University of Dundee, is hosting the fifth and final iteration of The Ignorant Art School this October. The project has focused on a series of sit-ins, working towards creative emancipation.

This final chapter is titled Compassionate Rebels in Action and is staged by award-winning British-Kenyan artist Grace Ndiritu. It will draw on the transformative power of activism, as well as Ndiritu’s own history with anti-apartheid and feminist action, and will feature a large-scale mural installation exploring historic protests and the potential for future ones.

Find out more about Ignorant Art School and Rebels In Action