Hogmanay in Scotland
Edinburgh’s street party, the fireballs of Stonehaven, torches in Comrie and the Ba’ in Kirkwall: where Scotland sees the new year in, and the customs that go with it.
Words by Hidden Scotland
Hogmanay is the Scots name for the last night of the year, and it has gone by that name since at least the seventeenth century. Scotland sees the new year in with fire as much as fireworks. There is a street party under the castle in Edinburgh, fireballs swung down the high street in Stonehaven, birch torches carried round Comrie and a bonfire in the middle of Biggar.
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They come round on the same night every year, so they are easy to plan a trip around, and only the big Edinburgh events need tickets. This winter’s dates are given wherever the organisers have announced them.
01 · Edinburgh
Edinburgh’s Hogmanay
The capital makes four days of it. It starts with the Torchlight Procession, when thousands of people carry flaming torches from the Meadows through the Old Town, led by pipes and drums and a squad of Vikings from one of Shetland’s Up Helly Aa festivals. On Hogmanay itself the Street Party fills Princes Street from 8pm, and the year ends with fireworks at midnight.
At the same time there is a concert in West Princes Street Gardens, right below Edinburgh Castle. On New Year’s Day, First Footin’ is a free trail of live music in venues across the city.
For Hogmanay 2026 the procession is on Tuesday 29 December at 6.30pm, and the Night Afore Party with The Fratellis is on Wednesday 30 December. The Street Party and Hogmanay in the Gardens, with Underworld, are on Thursday 31 December. All of them need tickets, and for the procession there must be a torch for every two people. Tickets are also sold at box offices at Edinburgh’s Christmas from 14 November.
Stay near Edinburgh’s Hogmanay
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Old Town Chambers
Edinburgh
Moment George IV Bridge
Edinburgh
West End Muse
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The Scott Hotel
Edinburgh
Clermount Cottage
Penicuik
The Byre
Penicuik
Wash House
Penicuik
Woodshed
Penicuik
02 · Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire
The Stonehaven Fireballs
At midnight in Stonehaven, as the bells ring in the new year, around forty men and women light their fireballs at the top of the harbour slipway. Then they swing them round their heads up and down the High Street. It lasts about twenty minutes, and fireworks go up over the bay at around 12.25am.
It is free to watch, with donations welcome at the gate. The High Street fills up, so the organisers suggest arriving from 10pm, and the gates always close at 11.40pm, or sooner once it is full. You can park on the streets and in the car parks at Market Square, the leisure centre and the community centre.
On New Year’s Day, blow the cobwebs away on the cliff path from the harbour to Dunnottar Castle.
03 · Comrie, Perthshire
The Comrie Flambeaux
In Comrie the new year comes in by torchlight. The flambeaux are tall birch poles wrapped in rags and tar. At midnight they are lit in Melville Square and carried round the village behind the pipe band, with a fancy-dress parade following on. At the end they are thrown off the Dalginross Bridge into the River Earn, which is said to cast out evil spirits.
The night is run by volunteers from the village, and it starts earlier in the evening with fancy dress for the children and a fireworks display. By day, the Earthquake Walk is a level four miles out of the village, past the tiny stone house built to measure Comrie’s tremors.
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04 · Biggar, South Lanarkshire
The Biggar Bonfire
Biggar builds an enormous bonfire in the middle of the town and lights it on Hogmanay. Before it is lit, a procession of torches and a pipe band walks up the High Street to the Corn Exchange, where the fire stands. It is put on by the town itself, through its community council and the Cornets Club.
05 · Kirkwall, Orkney
The Kirkwall Ba’
In Kirkwall, New Year’s Day and Christmas Day belong to the Ba’, a game of street football with the whole town for a pitch. Two sides, the Uppies and the Doonies, try to carry a handmade leather ball to their own goal at either end of the town, in one great swaying scrum. Which side you play for comes down to where you were born, your family, or how you first arrived in Kirkwall.
The men’s game starts at 1pm, when the ball is thrown up at the market cross on Broad Street as the cathedral clock strikes. The boys play first, at 10am, in front of St Magnus Cathedral.
06 · Burghead, Moray
The Burning of the Clavie
Burghead keeps the old new year, on 11 January. The Clavie is a barrel of tar that is set alight and carried through the village by a crew of men, then set into the Clavie stone on the Doorie Hill. The custom is old enough to have been written down in 1655.
The village stands on a headland that was once a great Pictish fort, and the Burghead and Clarkly Hill walk goes round its ramparts and up for the view over the Moray Firth.
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First-footing and Auld Lang Syne.
Once the bells have rung, the old custom is first-footing: being the first person over a friend’s or a neighbour’s doorstep in the new year. The first foot is meant to bring luck for the year ahead, especially if they are dark-haired. They should never arrive empty-handed. The traditional gifts are a lump of coal for the fire, black bun or shortbread, and a bottle of whisky. Black bun is a rich fruit cake baked inside a pastry case.
At midnight, wherever you are, people link arms and sing Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns wrote the song down in 1788 from an older one, and it was first printed in 1796, the year he died.
New Year’s Day is Ne’erday in Scots, and 2 January is a holiday in Scotland as well. In 2027 the second falls on a Saturday, so the holiday moves to Monday 4 January.
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