Edinburgh hosts the Hogmanay New Year's Eve celebration centered on events near Edinburgh Castle.
Hogmanay is the Scottish word for the New Year's Eve festival, and Edinburgh's modern celebration is one of the world's best-known large-scale New Year's events. Its program has included torchlight processions, concerts, street parties, and a major fireworks display viewed against the castle and Old Town skyline.
The public festival developed into a large organized event in the late twentieth century, especially after the first major Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebration in 1993. The name reflects older Scottish New Year customs, including “first-footing,” in which the first visitor to enter a home after midnight was believed to influence the household's fortune.
Edinburgh Castle is not simply a stage for every event: celebrations use several parts of the city, including Princes Street and nearby gardens. Weather, crowd safety, and public-health conditions can change the annual program, so individual events vary from year to year.