Hidden Door reveals huge line-up for 2026
The multidisciplinary Edinburgh arts festival will feature music from BIG WETT, Fred Deakin and Dara Dubh, together with a full programme of art, poetry, spoken word and dance
Multidisciplinary arts festival Hidden Door has announced its full line-up for 2026, once more taking place at Edinburgh’s Paper Factory. From Wednesday 3 to Sunday 7 June, the huge complex of warehouses, factory floors and offices will host the works of more than 100 people from the worlds of music, visual art, dance, poetry, spoken word and more. Tickets are available now.
This year’s festival, titled The Last Shift, refers to the site’s industrial past, exploring how spaces hold memory and how everyday activity is preserved, distorted or reimagined over time. Visitors will be encouraged to roam freely through the enormous venue, with performances and artworks unfolding across multiple spaces. Organisers say that no single route will reveal the full experience, with each audience member shaping their own journey through the building.
Music remains a crucial part of the programme, with a varied line-up of acts taking to the stage across the five nights. Highlights include enigmatic electro-pop act BIG WETT; experimental one-man-band performer ICHI; feminist DJ collective EPiKA; Norwegian singer-songwriter, producer and novelist Jenny Hval; Skye Gaelic-electronic fusion duo Valtos; the energetic Tinderbox Orchestra; acclaimed harpist Dara Dubh; and orchestral pop act Lauren Auder. Further acts are still to be announced, including ten bands whittled down from more 300 applications from an open call supported by Creative Edinburgh and the National Centre For Music.
The festival’s visual art strand will once again make full use of the site’s industrial space, with installations, projections and sculptural works integrated among disused machinery. Confirmed artists include Chema Rodriguez Alcantara, Ellie Harrison, Emma Macleod, Tiphereth and Fraser MacBeath.
From the spoken word programme, there will be appearances from Iona Lee, Josh Cake, Emily Grace Briggs, RJ Hunter and Sean Wai Keung. Cutting-edge dance comes from multidisciplinary artist and choreographer Ellen Crofton; award-winning duo PCK Dance; and a reimagination of Lord Of The Flies from Lothian Youth Dance Company, choreographed by Tough Boys Dance Collective.
Four newly commissioned interdisciplinary works will run throughout the festival, blending performance, film, sound and installation to reflect the building’s imagined and real histories. These are ‘Everyone Left’, a dance piece incorporating live film; ‘Process Line’, a spoken-word theatrical piece following a worker performing their factory routines; ‘Ghosts’, a roaming physical theatre piece featuring ritualistic, animal-like figures; and ‘Machine Stops’, which uses archival material and live performance to explore the factory’s fading memory.
As part of their continuing commitment to inclusivity, Hidden Door has expanded its concessionary tickets for 2026. D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people are entitled to a 30% discount; unemployed can also claim 30% off tickets; students and under 26s can bag a 20% saving; while over 65s can save 10% on their outings. Furthermore, Gig Buddies will support audience members with learning disabilities, there will be a limited allocation of ‘Pay What You Can’ tickets, and the festival will be free to attend every day before 6pm.
Hazel Johnson, director of Hidden Door, said: ‘We are excited to invite audiences to the Paper Factory’s “Final Shift” to witness the last, most vibrant chapter of this incredible site’s history.
‘By bringing together sound, movement, performance and visual art, we are transforming these now silent warehouses into a living, breathing, shifting entity.
‘It is a celebration of collaboration and the incredible artistic talent we have here in Scotland; this year’s programme has created the environment for our team to explore the story of a truly unique space. The result is going to be something entirely unrepeatable and spectacular.’
Hidden Door, The Paper Factory, Edinburgh, Wednesday 3–Sunday 7 June; main picture: Dan Mosley.