THOUGH the tagline, “The Last Shift”, illustrates Hidden Door’s final foray yet again in the Paper Factory in Ingliston, the festival itself is far from it.
Having gone from strength to strength in size and ambition, this 16-year-old grassroots multi-arts event reimagines its shape and space in the same venue as 2025 to allow audiences the opportunity to see the old Paper Factory in a very different light (though not without its machinery, knobs and buttons).
If we also note one of their key music headliners on the opening night, we are reminded of the mechanics of this astonishing venue and location.
Setting the tone for Hidden Door 2026 on Wednesday, June 3, is one-man band and quirky instrument-maker, ICHI, hailing all the way from Nagoya in Japan.
A fitting addition to the festival, ICHI is keen to play Edinburgh again for he says that his “first overseas performance outside of Japan was in Edinburgh, about 20 years ago”.
Hidden Door Festival began in 2010 in the Roxy in Edinburgh and developed into a full-blown festival in 2014.
It has amplified a variety of locations and buildings over the years, with the most notable being Leith Theatre on Ferry Road and the Old Royal High School on Calton Hill.
When Leith Theatre was given a whole new lease of life with Hidden Door’s intervention in 2017, the festival had blown up to what we now know it as today, though evolving and adapting to regularly changing spaces and areas of Edinburgh.
The recognition received for the capacity to transform the theatre into a fully functioning arts space, opening the doors to further festivals being hosted there, such as Edinburgh International, was quite the accolade.
These last few years, however, have been away from the city centre and Leith, which is not always easy to coax audiences to, with there being no other arts venues, certainly large scale, out near Edinburgh Gateway, where the Paper Factory is situated.
They are not afraid of a challenge, as they host their final iteration in the building, aspiringly flipping the venue so that it feels different to what they’ve previously delivered for their final hurrah.
The building is being taken over by developers to be unsurprisingly turned into flats.
Festival director Hazel Johnson outlines: “This space has been a factory on this site for almost 100 years. It was vacated by the workers we think in about 2022.
“We found evidence of post-pandemic activity here, but these stories are here to be told, and the building is remarkable so we wanted to come back to celebrate it before it becomes a very different type of space.”
When asking Johnson about the sole purpose of this grassroots festival, there was no messing about. Succinctly, “Hidden Door is all about people coming together to make something.”
When it comes to the music element of their programme, this is no different, with there always being a unique line-up of emerging and extraordinary acts.
This year, the festival has a broad local and international line-up, which spans from Norwegian singer-songwriter Jenny Hval to Irish harpist Dara Dubh via DJ Fred Deaken, erstwhile of Lemon Jelly, who will nostalgically take us on a journey of some of his pop club night experiences over the decades.
And let’s not forget Japan’s amazingly inventive and playful ICHI.
He says: “I want to incorporate improvisational elements into my performance, so I haven’t decided exactly what instruments I’ll use.”
We’re certainly all in for an exuberant surprise that initial Wednesday evening.
Johnson, on programming ICHI, admits: “The themes of this year’s festival include out-of-place objects and instruction manuals as part of the things we found on the site, and the machinery itself, buttons being pushed etc.
“There’s something about the very concept of how he makes his music, which really speaks to how we’re creating the festival as well, and how from madness comes this beautiful joy.’
And not only that, but ICHI also coincidentally worked part-time in a paper factory as a young 14-year-old, cleaning the chimney flues.
He states that it was to buy records, so “it’s meaningful to me that I’ll be able to play music there this time”.
Johnson reveals one of the things she loves best about Hidden Door is “when people come into the space and don’t really know how to behave, because they’ve not been in a space quite like it before.”
She adds: “You walk into a cinema – you know how to be. You don’t walk into a factory floor and immediately know how to navigate that.”
How fitting it is to kick off the opening night with an act that not only used to work in a paper factory to buy records, he’ll also get the audience thinking about the nuts and bolts of his musical machines that fill the factory with a vibrant explosion of noise.
Johnson couldn’t believe the alignment when she found out about ICHI’s past career.
“The idea that he’s actually had the experience in a space in an industry like the building that’s hosting us for this festival, that’s phenomenal,” she says
ICHI too is somewhat of a cross-art performer, as when asked what he’s looking forward to most from Hidden Door’s line-up, he states, “I’ve been collaborating with contemporary dancers in recent years, and I’m very interested in physical expression, so I’d love to see a dance performance.”
His playful approach is only ripening with age, as he also states: “As I get older, I’ve become more and more inspired by animism (which is the view that all things in nature – animals, plants, rivers, and weather systems – possess a spiritual essence or consciousness), and I want to dedicate myself to making the entire concert venue space – including the audience, chairs, walls, and floor – play and be enjoyed by everyone.”
If there is one artist that embodies the very ethos of Hidden Door performing at the festival this year, it’s obvious it’s ICHI, and not one to miss. Johnson reminds us: “Each night has a cross section of all the different types of things you should see at Hidden Door.
“There’ll be something for everybody, but there’ll also be some surprises.
“People will come across things they might never normally have seen. ICHI is a very good example of that,” she adds.
Make like a worker and go embellish that “Last Shift” while Hidden Door still occupies the factory. If not for the output, then for the sheer glee.
Hidden Door festival runs from Wednesday, June 3 to Sunday, June 7 at the Paper Factory in Edinburgh
