The Edinburgh Tour Guide
The first thing to understand is that there is no such thing as a Hogmanay ticket. Edinburgh's New Year is four separate events across four nights, each ticketed on its own, at prices running from free to £79. Two of them happen on the same night at £39 and £79, and almost nothing written about this explains the difference. Below is the 2026/27 edition as the operator has published it, with the age restriction that matters more than any of the prices.
Check the age limit before you book anything else. Both 31 December events are 12+, so Hogmanay night is closed to families with younger children. The all-ages event is the Torchlight Procession on 29 December. If you are two adults, the Street Party at £39 is the one most people mean; the £79 buys the Ross Bandstand concert instead, not a better view of the fireworks. And First Footin' on New Year's Day is free and unticketed, which is the best-value thing in the whole programme.
Runs
29 Dec 2026 – 1 Jan 2027
Street Party
from £39.00
Gardens concert
from £79.00
New Year’s Day
Free
The four nights, and the four separate tickets
Everything below is from the operator's own event pages, checked on 11 September 2026. Note the two right-hand columns rather than just the prices: the age rating and the on-sale status are where the decisions actually get made.
| Night | Event | Price | Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 29 Dec, 18:30 | Torchlight Procession, from the Meadows | £22.00 a torch | 12+ |
| Wed 30 Dec, 18:00 | Night Afore Party, The Fratellis | from £42.00 | Not stated |
| Thu 31 Dec, 20:00 | Street Party, Princes Street | from £39.00 | 12+ |
| Thu 31 Dec, 20:00 | Hogmanay in the Gardens, Underworld | from £79.00 | 12+ |
| Fri 1 Jan | First Footin', venues citywide | Free, unticketed | Not stated |
The Street Party is the one most people picture when they say Hogmanay: 45,000 people on Princes Street, live music, DJs, giant screens, street theatre and the midnight fireworks over the castle. The operator lists it at 285 minutes, which works out at about £8.20 an hour at the entry price. A 50p charity donation is added to each ticket.
£39 or £79 on the same night, and what the difference actually is
Two events start at 20:00 on 31 December, forty pounds apart, and the naming does nothing to help you choose. The difference is not the fireworks, which are fired over the castle and visible from both, and from a lot of the city besides.
The Street Party, from £39, puts you on Princes Street itself. It is the big outdoor thing: standing, moving, stages along the street, the crowd. Address for the ticket is Princes Street, EH2 2AN.
Hogmanay in the Gardens, from £79, is a different product wearing a similar name. It is the headline concert at the Ross Bandstand down inside Princes Street Gardens, EH2 2HG, which for this edition means Underworld making their Edinburgh Hogmanay debut. You are paying for a named act in an arena, not for a better vantage point.
So the honest framing is this. If you want to be in the middle of the most famous street party in the world, £39 does it. If you specifically want to see Underworld, £79 does that. If you want to watch fireworks over a castle, you can do that from a good deal of Edinburgh for nothing, and plenty of the photographs you have seen of this night were taken well outside the ticketed area.
The 12+ problem, and the one night that is not
This is the part to read before you book flights. Both 31 December events carry a 12+ restriction. The Street Party is listed as Age 12+ (Restriction)
, and Hogmanay in the Gardens as Ages 12+; under 16s require adult (18+) supervision
. Neither has a family ticket. If your party includes a ten-year-old, the two big Hogmanay-night events are closed to you.
There is now a third option on 31 December, and when this page was first published there was not. The Bairns' Hogmanay Ceilidh Club runs at the McEwan Hall, is rated Age 6+ (Guideline)
rather than 12+, and starts from £16.50. All children and under-16s have to be with an adult. The operator calls it an annual sell-out
, which is the kind of claim we would normally hedge, except that it is a single hall against 45,000 people outside on the same night, so the capacity argument does it for us.
It arrived with the McEwan Hall programme that the operator announced after this page went up, and it is the reason the paragraph above has been rewritten rather than left standing. We said in September that no amount of planning changed the 12+ wall on Hogmanay night. That was true in September and it is not true now.
One caveat we cannot resolve for you. The event page gives 31 Dec 2026 at 14:30 in its date block and Start time: 20:00
a few lines below. This site bleeds times between neighbouring events, which is a trap we document further down and hit again today. An afternoon ceilidh for six-year-olds is the more plausible of the two, and we are not going to publish a guess as a fact. Check the time on the booking page before you build a day around it.
The opening night does not rescue it either. The Torchlight Procession on 29 December is rated 12+, with a warning that it is not recommended under 12 and that under-18s need an adult with them, and buggies are not permitted in the procession at all. It is filed under Family on its own listing, which is how a nine-year-old ends up in the plan. Checked on 29 October 2026.
So all three of the headline nights carry the same restriction, and a family travelling with younger children is choosing between the free daytime programme and the Christmas events rather than between Hogmanay tickets.
Its ticketing is unusual enough to catch people out on top of that. You must buy at least one torch per two people, which works out cheaper than it sounds: a torch is £22.00 and a second person sharing it is £8.50, so two people get in for £30.50 rather than £44. The full price ladder, the lane you have to pick first and the route are on their own page.
The £33 ticket inside the Street Party booking flow
Open the Street Party booking flow and there are two ticket types, not one:
| Ticket | Price | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | £39.00 | Open to everyone |
| EH Resident | £33.00 | Discounted ticket for Edinburgh residents |
That is £6 off, about 15%, and it is not advertised anywhere on the event page. You only meet it at step three of the booking, after picking a date and a time. If you live in an EH postcode, or you are reading this for someone who does, it is worth the two extra clicks. We have not tested what proof is asked for at the gate, so we are not going to tell you it goes unchecked.
Both figures already include the £3.50 booking fee and the £0.50 charity donation, which the operator states up front rather than adding at the end. That is better behaviour than most of the ticketing we have had to read this month, and worth saying.
One thing to ignore while you are there. The event's own summary panel says Prices from: £10
. There is no £10 ticket. The cheapest thing the booking system will sell you is the £33 resident ticket, and the cheapest one a visitor can buy is £39. We have seen the same pattern twice more in Edinburgh this month, a venue summary that contradicts the venue's own checkout, so the rule of thumb is to believe the booking flow and nothing above it.
What else £39 buys you that week
Worth holding the Street Party price against something, because £39 is not a small number and Hogmanay is only one of four nights you will be in the city. Both of these cost about the same as that ticket, run 90 minutes, and are available on the other three days when the centre is at its busiest. What is open in the city at Christmas is a separate question, and the answer splits in two: the markets themselves cost nothing to walk into, while five of the six ticketed things inside them cost more than their listed price.
Edinburgh Castle Tickets and Guided Tour with a Local Guide
Ninety minutes and castle entry for the same £39 as a Street Party ticket. The highest-rated thing we have found in the city on a sample this size.
90-Minute Underground Whisky Tasting, Old Town
A cellar, a seat and a dram, which is a useful thing to have booked on a week when every pub in the Old Town is full.
Neither is a substitute for Hogmanay and neither is being sold here as one. The point is the comparison: the Street Party is roughly £8.20 an hour for 285 minutes outdoors in a crowd of 45,000, and that is either exactly what you came for or it is not.
The free part, and why we are hedging on it
First Footin' is the best-value item in the programme and the one written about least. It is a free, unticketed live music trail on New Year's Day, taking over landmark buildings and historic venues across the city centre. The operator reports that the 2025/26 edition drew over 20,000 people, to venues including St Giles' Cathedral and Greyfriars Kirk, and streamed some of it on YouTube.
Here is the hedge, and it is deliberate. The operator's page for First Footin' is currently dated 1 January 2026 and written in the past tense, with links to recordings. It is a record of the last edition rather than an announcement of the next one. We are not going to print a 2027 date that the operator has not published. Expect it to run, check before you rely on it.
The other thing about New Year's Day worth planning for is getting anywhere. The overnight Airlink buses do not run on the morning of 1 January, and the tram does not leave the airport before 06:30 on any day, so an early departure on the 1st needs arranging in advance rather than on the night.
What is on sale now, and what changed since September
A page published in September has to be honest about what you can actually buy today, so here is the September position and the October one side by side.
On 11 September the Street Party and Hogmanay in the Gardens were on sale, the Night Afore Party was marked on sale 10am Friday
, and the Torchlight Procession was marked coming soon
with no ticket price published at all beyond the charity donation.
The Torchlight Procession is on sale, and re-checked in the booking flow on 29 October 2026 the price is £22.00 for a torch, including a £2 charity donation and a £1.50 booking fee. A second person sharing that torch pays £8.50 and cannot buy that ticket on its own. The listing panel still advertises from £5.75
, which is not a price anything in the flow is sold at, and the producer's own announcement of 8 October gives the figure as from £22. The torch, lanyard and £5 donation belong to the Premium ticket, which was showing as sold out.
Do not read that as no rush. The operator's own news page describes demand for Hogmanay 2026 tickets as overwhelming, to the point of triggering an early-bird release. The two events already on sale are the two with the hard age limit and the fixed capacity.
Every date, price, age rating and on-sale status here comes from the operator's own event pages, read on 11 September 2026 and re-checked on 13 October.
Before you book
Before you book
- Age first, price second. Both 31 December events are 12+. With younger children, build the trip around the Torchlight Procession on the 29th.
- £39 is Princes Street, £79 is the Gardens concert. The extra forty pounds buys Underworld at the Ross Bandstand, not a better view of the fireworks.
- You do not need a ticket to see fireworks. They go up over the castle and are visible across much of the city.
- Torchlight: one torch per two people, minimum. £22.00 a torch and £8.50 for a second person sharing it, so £30.50 for two rather than £44.
- New Year's Day is the free day. First Footin' is unticketed, though the 2027 edition is not confirmed yet.
- The Christmas market shuts at 17:00 on the 31st. Do the market and the Big Wheel in daylight that day, not after dark.
- Sort 1 January transport before the night. No overnight Airlink buses that morning, and no tram out of the airport before 06:30.
Quick answers
When is Edinburgh Hogmanay 2026?
It runs across four nights, from Tuesday 29 December 2026 to Friday 1 January 2027. The Torchlight Procession opens it on the 29th at 18:30, the Night Afore Party is on the 30th at 18:00, the Street Party and Hogmanay in the Gardens both run on the 31st from 20:00, and First Footin' closes it on New Year's Day. There is no single festival pass: each one is ticketed separately, at a different price.
How much are Edinburgh Hogmanay tickets?
It depends entirely on which night you mean, and the range is wide. The Street Party on 31 December is from £39.00. Hogmanay in the Gardens, the headline concert on the same night, is from £79.00. The Night Afore Party on 30 December is from £42.00. First Footin' on New Year's Day is free and unticketed. The Torchlight Procession on 29 December is £22.00 for a torch, with a second person able to share it for £8.50, so two people get in for £30.50.
Is the Edinburgh Street Party suitable for children?
No. The Street Party carries a hard 12+ age restriction, and Hogmanay in the Gardens is also 12+ with under-16s requiring supervision by an adult over 18. That rules out Hogmanay night itself for families with younger children, which is the single most useful thing to know before booking flights. The Torchlight Procession on the 29th does not fix it either: checked on 29 October 2026 it is rated 12+, carries a warning that it is not recommended under 12, and does not permit buggies in the procession. All three headline nights are 12+, so a family with younger children is looking at the free daytime programme and the Christmas events instead.
What is the difference between the Street Party and Hogmanay in the Gardens?
Location, and roughly forty pounds. The Street Party is on Princes Street itself, from £39.00, and lasts 285 minutes from 20:00, with live music, DJs, giant screens, street theatre and the midnight fireworks over the castle. Hogmanay in the Gardens is the seated-arena headline concert at the Ross Bandstand inside Princes Street Gardens, from £79.00, headlined this year by Underworld. Both start at 20:00 on 31 December and both are 12+.
Is anything at Edinburgh Hogmanay free?
Yes, and it is the part least written about. First Footin' is a free, unticketed live music trail on New Year's Day that takes over landmark buildings and historic venues across the city centre. The operator reports the 2025/26 edition drawing over 20,000 people to venues including St Giles' Cathedral and Greyfriars Kirk. One caveat worth having: the operator's page for it currently documents that past edition rather than announcing a 2027 one, so treat it as likely rather than confirmed until they publish it.
What is the Torchlight Procession?
The event that opens the festival, on 29 December 2026 at 18:30, when around 15,000 torch bearers carry lit torches from the Meadows through the Old Town, led by massed pipes and drums and the Viking Jarl Squad from Shetland's Up Helly Aa. Ticketing works unusually: you must buy at least one torch per two people, and additional participants need entry wristbands or their own torches. A torch is £22.00 and a second person sharing it is £8.50, so a couple pays £30.50 rather than £44. It is rated 12+, and watching from the route costs nothing.
Do I need a ticket to see the Hogmanay fireworks?
Not to see them, no. The midnight display is fired over Edinburgh Castle and is visible from a great deal of the city, which is why so many photographs of it are taken from far outside the ticketed area. What a ticket buys is being inside the event on Princes Street or in the Gardens, with the music, the screens and the atmosphere, rather than the fireworks themselves. That distinction is worth being clear about before paying £39.
Does the Christmas market stay open for Hogmanay?
Only during the day, and this catches people out. On 31 December the LNER Big Wheel runs 10:00 to 17:00 rather than its usual 10:00 to 22:00, because the city centre is handed over to the Street Party that evening. So the market and the wheel are a daytime activity on Hogmanay itself, not an evening one. On 1 January the wheel opens late, at 12:00.
About this guide
Written by Diego Fresno, Independent travel writer and researcher. Guides are based on first-hand research in Edinburgh and verified against operator and official sources for the 2026 season. Verified: August 2026. About the author →