Edinburgh’s festival season officially launched with Murrayfield spectacular

Edinburgh’s 75th anniversary festivals season was officially launced with a spectacular celebratory outdoor event at the home of Scottish rugby.

Performers from Australia and Scotland appeared in the Edinburgh International Festival's free curtainraiser Macro at Murrayfield Stadium. Picture: Andrew Perry

Around 16,000 free tickets were snapped up in advance for Macro, an event which saw Australian and Scottish performers join forces to create a 70-minute show featuring live music, acrobatics, music and light projections.

Organised by the Edinburgh International Festival, the Murrayfield event coincided with the official opening nights of the Fringe and the Tattoo. The city’s book and film festivals will both be launched next weekend.

Marco, which was jointly commisioned by the EIF and the Adelaide Festival, featured circus group Gravity & Other Myths, First Nations dance outfit Djuki Mala, the National Youth Choir of Scotland, and leading figures from the Scots trad music scene, including fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, singer Kathleen MacInnes and piper Brighde Chaimbeul.

Performers from Australia and Scotland appeared in the Edinburgh International Festival's free curtainraiser Macro at Murrayfield Stadium. Picture: Andrew Perry

Macro, which heralded the launch of director Fergus Linehan’s final season in charge of the event, is the last in a series of free opening night curtain-raisers he has programmed, with previous events being staged beneath Edinburgh Castle, in St Andrew Square, outside the Usher Hall, and at Tynecastle Park football stadium.

Lachlan Binns, co-founder of Gravity & Other Myths, said: “The city has real significance for us as although we’re Australian, it really feels as we were born and took our big steps here.

"The show is about collaboration, connection and coming together, about different places and cultures, and the things that join us together across great distances and the things that we share.”