We’re full of excitement today because it’s out last full-cast walkthrough rehearsal and Samhuinn is in two days! After months of planning, creativity and work, it’s almost here and we can’t wait.

If you’re thinking of celebrating with us in Edinburgh, the festival begins at 9pm on 31st October at the top of the Royal Mile with a procession that moves down the Mile to the stage at West Parliament Square. You can find out all about the event and the Samhuinn story on this page and you’re welcome to register your attendance on our Facebook event too.

We’ve also created a page filled with useful information to help you make the most of your night with us, so we definitely advise spending five minutes reading through our Samhuinn Audience Experience before Monday night. While it’s in no way essential to know exactly who everyone is and what everything means to have a fantastic time, you can learn a bit more about the colourful characters you’ll encounter at the festival on our Court, Blues and Group Info pages.

Attendance is by donation, meaning there are no tickets but our friendly, costumed Bucketeers will be wandering around all evening if you’d like to make a donation. You can even donate by PayPal if you’d prefer. As a volunteer-led registered charity, we rely on your donations to keep doing what we do and celebrating our unique festivals with you in Edinburgh every year.

If you upload your photos and video from the night to social media, don’t forget to use our #samhuinn2016 hashtag and give us a mention so we can see and share your memories. You can find us at facebook.com/beltanefiresociety, instagram.com/beltanefiresociety and twitter.com/beltanefs. Speaking of social media, we’ll be sharing some photos and video live from the event (mostly on Facebook) so if you can’t make it along or are following us from another part of the world, you can still experience the festival.

Our incredible team of hardworking volunteer photographers will be capturing all the action on the night. We’ll have a small selection of photos to share with you in the wee small hours after the festival and the rest (literally hundreds of them!) will be appearing on Facebook over the following weeks. Everything on our Facebook page is publicly viewable, so even if you aren’t a Facebook user you’ll still be able to see and enjoy all our content. If you keep an eye on Facebook tonight, you might even see some live action from the final walkthrough rehearsal.

The Samhuinn Fire Festival 2016 is at 9pm on Monday 31st October on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Find out all about it here.