Edinburgh’s New Year’s Eve celebration includes the annual Hogmanay torchlight procession.
Edinburgh’s Hogmanay is a multi-day New Year festival featuring concerts, street celebrations, and a torchlight procession through the city. Participants carry flaming torches in a large procession toward a concluding gathering, creating one of the festival’s most recognizable images.
The procession is connected with Scotland’s wider Hogmanay customs, which include welcoming the new year, visiting friends and family, and observing first-footing traditions. Edinburgh’s modern festival format grew substantially from the late twentieth century and became an internationally known winter event.
Hogmanay is not exclusive to Edinburgh: celebrations take place throughout Scotland, and Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee also host major events. The city-specific clue here is the organized torchlight procession associated with Edinburgh’s official festival, rather than the general Scottish name for New Year’s Eve.