As always, there are just too many great Scottish festivals to fit in one wee SNACK, so here’s part 2 of our annual Festivals Guide (Part 1 here). The August Edinburgh Festivals will have a whole issue devoted to them later in the year, so we’re concentrating our attention elsewhere for the moment. Our advice: get stuck in, keep supporting your favourites, and maybe take a chance on one or two festivals that you’ve never thought to. You’ll be all the better for it, promise.
GLASGOW ZINE FEST
Tramway & Hidden Gardens, Glasgow + online 2nd till 6th July
Glasgow Zine Fest is the city’s yearly celebration of zine culture, featuring events centred around art, community, and heritage. They’ll be making the move to the Tramway for this year’s festival and, honestly, this seems like a great move for them. Each year they have over 40 zine-makers. For the whole weekend, the makers, small presses, artists and more showcase their wares, hang out with each other, and generally have a lovely time. All in the Southside. Can you tell we’re excited?
glasgowzinelibrary.com/glasgow-zine-fest
DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY ARTS FESTIVAL
Various venues, Dumfries and Galloway, 15th May till 1st June
Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival brings world-class performing arts to residents and visitors in some of the region’s most rural areas. Don’t worry, you won’t need a map or a compass to find it, though – rural just means ‘not in the city’ for these purposes. This year’s programme is spread over 11 days and comprises theatre, music, dance, comedy, and spoken word and marks its 46th year. The full line-up will be announced on 9th April. Give them a follow on their socials to find out more.
HEBCELT
Stornoway, Lewis, 16th till 19th July
This year, the HebCelt team are once again partnering with Stornoway cultural venue and arts organisation An Lanntair. The festival line-up, as is their way, places a focus on local artists and the Gaelic language, alongside some old favourites – it’s packed with loads of treats. No one is going to say that Lulu is a particularly inspired booking but we’re sure she’ll belt out the classics, and sometimes that’s all you need. She joins Skerryvore, Nina Nesbitt, Eddi Reader, Trail West, Josie Duncan, Beluga Lagoon, Tom McGuire & The Brassholes, Malin Lewis, and loads of others to make a deep and multilayered line-up.
This is the great bit: 70 percent of acts performing at HebCelt this year are female-led or have female members. The festival has ensured it has had at least 50:50 gender balance every year since 2014. Go on, you’ll have a ball.
WASTELANDS
BAaD, Stereo, Room 2 and SLAY, Glasgow, 6th till 8th June
Wastelands is the newbie on the Glasgow city festival scene and the line-up looks right up our street. Seriously, the line-up has the widest range of bands and artists we’ve seen in the city for quite some time. BAaD, Stereo, Room 2, and SLAY will host this mammoth and diverse list of acts over the 3-day weekend. Pick a genre… yup, they got it.
Drum and bass, jungle, alternative folk, jazz, hardcore punk, noise, doom jazz, stoner doom, speedbass, rollers, experimental electronic noise, ambient live percussion, metalcore, grindcore, powerviolence, singer/Songwriter acoustic, soul, funk, avant-garde jazz, surfer garage punk, post punk Glasgow hip-hop, synth doom & medieval evil, neo-Motown, synth punk. Told ya.
Over the weekend at BAaD, you’ll find street market stalls by Glasgow-based artists. £3 of ticket sales will go towards Trees+, a project that plants trees, restores and preserves threatened ecosystems, and supports communities on the front line of climate change. Looks like it will be a cracking weekend.
ALCHEMY FILM AND MOVING IMAGE FESTIVAL
Hawick, 1st till 4th May
Now in its fifteenth year, Alchemy is known for attracting artists who push the boundaries of film – who question, who intervene, who disrupt the norm. With live performances, screenings, exhibitions, and a ceilidh, Hawick is the place you wanna be to discover new voices and pioneers. One highlight will be Kamal Aljafari’s feature A Fidai Film, which powerfully reclaims archive images plundered from the Palestinian Research Institute during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Beirut. On the Saturday, Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s award-winning debut Kouté vwa [Listen to the Voices] vividly explores community and youth amidst the residues of colonialism in French Guiana. Or maybe you fancy getting in about it with the film quiz? Small enough to feel personal, big enough to make a difference. Your options are plentiful.
EDINBURGH SCIENCE FESTIVAL
Across Edinburgh, 5th till 20th April
With this year’s theme of ‘Spaceship Earth’, Edinburgh Science Festival will explore the challenges of living on a planet with finite resources through the lenses of science fiction and space exploration. STEM (that’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and art will collide for what they claim will be a series of genre-defying events.
In Quantum Music, Professor Bob Coecke, a former Oxford University professor and founder of rock/electronica fusion band Black Tish, will illustrate how the coming quantum revolution – a fairly terrifying concept to some – can be used to compose new kinds of music, and will play his guitar on a quantum computer.
They’re also hosting a series of Science Nights Out, including Spaceship Earth After Hours at the National Museum of Scotland, where visitors will have the chance to meet a real-life astronaut and view new designs in a costume show from the Edinburgh College of Art. Dynamic Earth will feature space-themed movie nights, including Apollo 13 and Gravity, in their planetarium.
SOLAS
Errol Park, Perthshire 20th till 22nd June
A festival with a mission, Solas returns to not only entertain but also promote social and environmental justice. From global music focused on nurturing new talent, to offering food for thought through debates with activists and thinkers of various disciplines, the festival is varied and sure to expand your horizons. With Hamish Hawk, Alice Faye, Kinnaris Quintet, Theo Bleak, and Katie Gregson-MacLeod, you’re guaranteed a quality time. Importantly, the festival has a Fair Work policy, which is a far rarer thing than it should be.
There’s a true community feel to Solas. As our own Natalie Jayne Clark said of the 2024 festival: it may be small, but it packs a punch, with its assorted programming and stunning setting, replete with beautiful vistas, verdant towering trees, and long-eyelashed Highland cows.
HIDDEN DOOR
The Paper Factory, Edinburgh, 11th till 15th June
With its solid history of bringing quality grassroots arts to previously abandoned urban locations, Hidden Door is always a highlight in the SNACK calendar. Music, dance, poetry and spoken word, and visual art collide and intertwine – what else do you want? This year they have the use of the old Saica paper and cardboard manufacturing site and we can’t wait to see what they do with it.
Music-wise, it’s like they’ve been spying on our secretly scribbled ‘artists we love’ lists. They have Bikini Body, Mermaid Chunky, Snapped Ankles, Witch Fever, Sprints and SISTER MADDS on the Thursday, whilst Friday night sees Alice Faye, Tinderbox Orchestra, and Erland Cooper. Saturday will have No Windows, The Orielles, Katy J Pearson, Moor Mother, Bee Asha, MC Yallah & Debmaster and Ishmael Ensemble.
Samedia Shebeen and Paradise Palms Records will bring the weekend club vibes. Great, eh?
NORTHERN STREAMS
The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 18th till 20th April
Always a treat, this year’s Northern Streams features artists with backgrounds and repertoire from Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Scotland. It’s unlike any other festival we know. This year they open up on Friday 18th April with Songs, Shanties, Sagas & Stories about Vikings, Pirates and the Sea, blending symphonic elements with ancient, rousing songs and cross-cultural storytelling. They’ll also have a clutch of memorable workshops: you can learn the music that accompanied traditional farming life at summer grazing pastures, bring the family to learn about maritime history, pirates, sea shanties and storytelling, or go back to the Viking age with songs and tunes on the lyre as well as Danish folk songs of today. Prior knowledge of the Danish language not required.
Saturday 19th will neatly culminate with their evening concert & ceilidh. Norway’s Gro-Marthe Dickson will be a highlight, with her freewheeling folk with touches of jazz, soul, and pop and her latest project of exploring and connecting with the heritage of her Scottish granny! Kristina Leesik, Anna Whiteford, and Rose Logan will continue creating a magical bond between all the featured countries and traditions with polska, reinländer, jigs, and more, from the concert into the all-important ceilidh part of the evening. Their closing event, an open music and song session, is on the Sunday afternoon, and is free entry. You’ll be reeling!
