Go ahead given for FLY Open Air Festival to return to The Ross Bandstand

After councillors voted to give the FLY Open Air Festival the green light for next weekend, 4,000 young people will, once again, get to dance each day under the castle .

The festival, nominated as UK’s Best Metropolitan Event in 2019 will create 260 event jobs across the weekend and directly benefit the park by raising funds to plant over 100 new trees suffering from ash dieback disease.

The local tourist economy will also receive a massive boost with youngsters coming back into the city centre spending in shops, hotels, cafes and bars.

The local organisers this year picked their chosen charity as Steps To Hope, an Edinburgh based homeless support group.

Culture and Communities Vice Convener at City of Edinburgh Council, Cllr Amy McNeese-Mechan said:

“I’m delighted the much-loved FLY Festival is making a welcome return to Edinburgh’s events calendar – particularly for our young people who have missed out on so much over the course of the pandemic.

“We’ve been working closely with the organisers and other partners, including the police and ambulance service, to ensure the event can go ahead safely and in line with the latest Scottish Government guidance and I want to pay tribute to the Team Edinburgh approach that’s allowed this to happen.

“This has very much been our approach to supporting the ongoing recovery of our festivals and events sector and, as we’ve seen from the hugely successful return of the Festivals this summer, careful planning and, where necessary, compromise can pay real dividends. I sincerely hope this will become a template for future years.

“As well as bringing live music back to the city centre, FLY Festival has also pledged to plant 100 trees in the Gardens after raising £10,000 for local charities in previous years and will support local charity Steps to Hope this year. I hope everyone enjoys the Festival safely and responsibly.”

Founder of FLY, Tom Ketley said: “The pandemic has been a brutally hard for the events industry and we’re overjoyed to be getting back to work & doing what we love.

“We will be making a negative lateral flow test as a condition of entry to ensure a safe site and implementing additional sanitation & covid measures.”

The event which sold out the 12,000 tickets in a record 2 minutes sees some of the world’s biggest names in electronic music as well as homegrown local talent playing across all three days including headliners Folamour, Job Jobse, Palms Trax & FJAAK live.