Edinburgh is especially associated with the large Hogmanay street party.
Hogmanay is the Scottish celebration of New Year’s Eve and the arrival of the new year. Edinburgh’s event grew into a major organized festival featuring a city-center street party, concerts, a torchlight procession, and a midnight fireworks display. Its exact format has changed over time, and events can be altered or canceled for safety, weather, or public-health reasons.
The celebration is not simply another name for a fireworks show. Hogmanay includes customs such as first-footing, in which the first person to enter a household after midnight is traditionally linked with the household’s luck for the year. Gifts or symbolic items may be carried by the first-footer.
Edinburgh’s festival is sometimes treated as Scotland’s only Hogmanay celebration, but communities across Scotland mark the occasion in their own ways. The city’s fame comes from its large-scale international festival and historic Old Town setting.