It Never Did: the thread about “why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay?”
HOGMANAY, n.
[hɔgmə′ne:]
The 31st December, the last day of the year, New Year’s Eve.
Generic Scots, origin much disputed, the only satisfactory etymology is the derivation from northern French dialect hoginane etc. from 16th c. French aguillanneuf, a gift given at the New Year, a children’s cry for such a gift, the second element of which appears to be l’an neuf, the New Year. In Scotland the word is probably due to the French Alliance and had been borrowed before 1560
Dictionaries of the Scots Language
In a news article the other day, the BBC’s Edinburgh and East Reporter sought to answer the age old question of “Why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay?” It’s not a bad little piece by any account, but doesn’t really get under the bonnet of how the city came to consider itself the “official” home of these festivities and it reminded me that this is something I have previously peered into without writing it up. So with just under nine hours to go until The Bells, let’s finish off the Threadinburgh year by
BBC news article screen shot “Why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay?”
The “official” Edinburgh’s Hogmanay™ festivities are an ancient tradition dating back to the last century, to the year 1993 to be precise. This three-day event was dreamed up by Unique Events Ltd. and the quasi-autonomous agency Edinburgh Marketing to “[package] Edinburgh more effectively” and thus “improve the visitor experience” at this time of year. All the bones of the now established programme were there; a torchlight procession, a concert in Princes Street Gardens and a street party with “fireworks spectacular” on Princes Street.
Newspaper advert for “Edinburgh’s Hogmanay”, The Scotsman – Saturday 11 December 1993
Prior to this, the officially unofficial locus of Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh was on the High Street, outside the Tron Kirk. By the early 1990s, crowds of up to 20,000 were in regular attendance here but a particularly violent 1992, with 1,900 drink-related injuries treated at the Royal Infirmary and three separate sex attacks reported to the police, saw an official rethink.
Photo of crowds outside The Tron in 1991/92 Hogmanay. Edinburgh Evening News – 2nd January 1992
In stepped the marketing and events types, buoyed by the success of the closing celebration of the city’s European Council Summit in 1992 which marked the end of the UK’s presidency and start of the Single Market. At the same time as trouble was kicking off outside the Tron, the Beacon Europe event was being started from Edinburgh Castle, the beginning of a chain of 700 beacons that stretched from John O’ Groats to Lands End with 300 more lit on the continent, the Greek Prime Minister lighting one at the chain’s far end in Athens to coincide with its start in Edinburgh.
Beacon Europe pamphlet, showing an engraving of a 16th century figure holding a beacon in their hand. Subtitled “European Unity Celebrations, 31 December 1992”
The beacon was lit at the stroke of midnight after musician Fish led a free (but ticketed) sing-along in Princes Street Gardens, followed by a “children’s eco-anthem for Europe.” A laser fired from the Ross Bandstand then ignited a 30ft gas flame on the Castle’s Half Moon Battery.
Edinburgh 1992 beacon lighting on the Castle’s half moon battery at Hogmanay. Official photo via Edinburgh City Libraries
Official support quickly materialised behind the Hogmanay™ idea, the District Council were particularly keen, being somewhat embarrassed by the traditional public displays of lasciviousness, drunkenness and urination outside the Tron – and therefore also their own doorstep at City Chambers. Their support extended to helping financed the scheme to the tune of £200,000, along with Lothian Regional Council, Edinburgh and Lothians Enterprise and the Scottish Tourist Board. This meant that most of the outdoor events could be made free to the public. Not everyone was happy though – the scheme was branded “three days of hell” by Conservative councillor Ian Hoy and in the Evening News, then Labour councillor George Kerevan labelled it as “Come to Edinburgh and get smashed“.
The council and events types were also keen to do something about the traditional Hogmanay being a local event for local people, a mass blow-out which resulted in a 2-day public holiday and hangover with most businesses and much hospitality closed down. Pete Irvine of Unique Events told the ‘News “it’s a myth that New Year is a ‘great time’… there is nothing for the many people who are on holiday“. The stated founding aim was not just the “biggest and best Hogmanay party” in Scotland – a title Glasgow traditional claimed – but in the World. There was of course an irony that in order to do this, the traditional Scottish long New Year public holiday had to be eroded.
With official support and substantial public and corporate funding, Hogmanay™ proved a huge success. But an infamous 1996 street party where an estimated 400,000 people crammed the city centre in appalling weather, resulting in crush injuries and hypothermia, saw restrictions brought in. Initially this was by means of free wrist-bands (four per person) but it soon pivoted to becoming an ever-pricier ticket only event. The organisers had an eye on the long game from the beginning and had told the ‘News they had booked the pipe bands for the Millennium street party before the first one had even taken place.
22nd November 1997, The Scotsman, a queue of 1,000 people snakes up Bank Street towards the High Street to get some of the 180,000 free wrist bands for that year’s Hogmanay street party in Edinburgh being handed out from the Box Office on Waverley Bridge.
Another cornerstone of Hogmanay™ is Ye Olde Tochlicht Processione, also an invention of 1993. This was co-opted from a mix of long established Scottish rural traditions like the Comrie Flambeaux, Biggar Ne’erday Bonfire, Stonehaven Fireballs and the Masonic processions of the Borders which mark the Feast of St. John the Evangelist.
1996-7 Torchlight procession advertising booklet for Edinburgh, sponsored by the Bank of Scotland. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
The event has continued to grow in its scale – and the volume of debate and criticism it generates – ever since and is a substantial industry in itself. The rest, as they say, is history, and the answer to the question “Why did Edinburgh become the home of Hogmanay” is of course because it deliberately set out do so and has spent a huge amount of public and private money in pursuit of that goal over the last three decades. The other answer to the same question is that the city is not the “home of Hogmanay” at all, and has no authority to claim itself as so. Hogmanay is an ungovernable, spontaneous celebration that is owned by nobody and belongs to all of Scotland. Edinburgh just happens to have commercialised the idea, declared itself as brand owner, and in the process totally lost the whole point of it.
And on that slightly snarky note I shall thank you for reading this far, for sticking with Threadinburgh and that you have a very Happy New Year when it comes and a 2026 full of local history. If you’re still in need of a further fix of appropriate reading material for the time of year, I can suggest this culinary thread about the history of the New Year Day steak pie.
“Hogmanay At The Tron”, 2013 mural by Chris Rutterford painted within the Tron Kirk itself.
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#1993 #Celebrations #Edinburgh #Festival #HighStreet #Hogmanay #January1 #OldTown #Tron
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