AN INDEPENDENT music and arts festival celebrating some of Scotland’s best grassroots talent while embracing inclusivity and the environment is set to welcome Scots once again this summer.
Founded from the chill out zone in the famed Wickerman Festival, by a local youth counsellor and a bunch of bored teenagers, the Eden Festival launched as its own cultural gathering set within the picturesque Raehills Meadows, Moffat, Dumfriesshire, in 2009.
With a key focus on celebrating Scotland’s top grassroots artists across a plethora of genres, the Eden Festival has grown into a four-day event, from June 12 to 15, and is packed full of art installations and live music.
Hannah Gould, festival director, believes one of the reasons why Eden Festival has become such a popular event is due to its mantra of welcoming everyone regardless of how “quirky” they may or may not be.
“Our aim is to get a space where people can experiment, and audiences can discover something new, and they're not held in by anything,” she said.
“No matter how quirky or unquirky you are, we like to make everybody feel a part of the family, which I think is quite a unique vibe at Eden.”
Ahead of this year's festival, organisers have unveiled its much-anticipated theme of space, inviting festival-goers to embody a cosmic experience.
This year's headliners include performances from Bob Vylan, Slum Village, Beluga Lagoon, Mungo’s Hi-fi, and Tom McGuire & the Brassholes.
The 10-stage independent festival’s musical offering spans genres, from world music to folk, funk, classical, jungle, dancehall, and everything in between.
There are also dedicated nature and kids areas where people can either get away from the “thick of it” or be in the thick of it if they wish.
“We have so many different stages, tents, workshops and installations that everybody's going to find something that they love and everybody's going to find like-minded people as well,” Gould said.
Along with providing top performances, the Eden Festival also prides itself on its green initiatives, which include appointing an environmental warden, banning single-use plastics, and running a “rent a cup” scheme where you pay a small deposit and keep your cup for the event.
Gould said the festival has organised shuttle buses for the first time this year as they are encouraging more people to leave their cars at home and take public transport to the event.
She added that the festival organisers take care every year when constructing the event space to make sure they rehome any animals which may be nesting within the grounds, which includes a group of ducks which return to the site every year.
Gould explained that last year, the ducklings hatched at the start of the festival, so they set up a “Garden of Eden” where they were blocked off from the public.
“Every year when we do the build, we always discover there's generally birds nesting either on the ground or in some of the buildings that we have, so there's always a big effort to make sure that they're rehomed,” Gould said.
With the festival being not for profit, Gould said they have rejected any corporate sponsorships, meaning they have been able to keep their creative freedoms.
She added that throughout the years, the Eden Festival has built up strong connections with local traders who have helped the event flourish into what it has become today.
Gould said: “We're in a position where we use a lot of local suppliers who have been very good to us because we are a community interest and we're not for profit, you know, so we do call in a fair few favors.”
However, Gould said one challenge the festival has faced this year is that due to the ongoing cost of living crisis, people have been unable to snap up their tickets earlier in the year.
Gould explained that not having people buy tickets earlier makes it logistically harder to plan the event, but understands that people are finding it harder to pay for things up front when money is tight.
She said: “The biggest trouble this year is people buying tickets later.
“We used to find that people bought tickets more regularly throughout the year and we're finding this year, especially, that people seem to be leaving at the last minute to buy tickets.”
Click here to buy your tickets to Eden Festival or to find out more information.
