At Scotland's Edinburgh Hogmanay, what torchlit event traditionally helps launch the celebrations?

At Scotland's Edinburgh Hogmanay, a torchlight procession traditionally helps launch the celebrations.

The Edinburgh Hogmanay festival is a large New Year's celebration centered on the Scottish capital. Its opening torchlight procession takes participants through the city, creating a river of fire before the main concerts and countdown events. The route and arrangements can vary by year, but the torchlit procession is one of the festival's signature elements.

The event draws on Scotland's long association between winter celebrations, fire, and the symbolic clearing away of the old year. Edinburgh's historic streets and volcanic hills provide a distinctive setting, although the modern festival is a carefully organized public event rather than an ancient ceremony preserved unchanged.

Hogmanay is broader than the Edinburgh festival alone: the word refers to Scottish New Year's Eve celebrations generally. The capital's procession should therefore not be confused with the separate first-footing custom, in which the first visitor entering a home after midnight is associated with luck.