Scottish Festivals

Edinburgh's festival season kicks off with the Meadows Festival, which offers the best local bands, dance groups, quirky performers and workshops amidst lots of family-friendly activities.

A 16-day festival incorporating music, theatre and activities for all the family.

Affectionately known as 'Mo Fest', this annual event in the colourful town of Montrose offers band nights, ceilidhs, big names on stage and a campsite.

A local festival with a range of activities and musical concerts, exhibitions, craft fairs and a daily café and sporting competitions.

A new festival for 2013 and the largest of its kind in Scotland with an extensive programme of performances, seminars and competitions, as well as a trade exhibition. Performances will feature an international line-up of artists including Jan Akkerman, Peter Finger, John Doan, Anth Purdy and The Maria Camahort Quintet.

Taking over the West End of Glasgow each year, the festival treats the ears to a great musical line-up, tantalises all the senses with a carnival and delves into the creative depths of local studios and exhibitions with the Hidden Lane Festival.

CAMRA's (The Campaign for Real Ale) most northerly annual festival is now in its 27th year and offers the chance to sample from over 100 cask ales selected from throughout the UK, real ciders and perries and a selection of continental bottled beers.

A free, local literature festival run by West Dunbartonshire Libraries that nevertheless manages to book some big name authors for its programme of talks, signings and more unusual events. This 11th edition sees Alasdair Gray, William McIlvanney and Allan Massie join non-fiction writers Margaret Evison, Tom Devine and DA…

This year marks ten years of this local multi-arts festival. Mixing music, art, comedy, poetry and a popular carnival, the bill includes Les Mc Ewan's Legendary Bay City Rollers, Talon: The Best of the Eagles, And Finally … Phil Collins and Koda.

A three day festival which captures the varied music traditions of the north of Scotland, so there's everything from bothy ballads to Burns as well as Celtic, folk, Americana and Irish influenced music. There is also a range of sessions, workshops and storytelling from local performers and musicians.

After a successful first outing last year, this festival specialising in all things naughty and arty returns for a second week of big-time sensuality in the form of performance, visual arts and crafts, film and more.

The epitome of chilled festivals, the Lossiemouth Folk Club Fest encourages performers to come and play 'for the craic' in the spirit of celebrating traditional music and tales. The entertainment's free, with performers rewarded with a great atmosphere at this small festival by the sea.

Rewind goes large on nostalgia with the biggest line-up of 80s artists to perform together in Scotland. Saturday will be headlined by Ali Campbell's UB40 with support from Kim Wilde, Mike + The Mechanics, Starship, Rick Astley, Howard Jones, Soul II Soul, Heather Small, A Flock Of Seagulls, Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Captain…

A one-day celebration of homeland food and drink, craft, design and live music. You can nibble your way around the food fair, with samples of regional produce from Galloway Fudge to Arbroath Smokies. The craft fair sells a range of products from handmade cards to woodcarvings, while there's live music throughout the day.

Ayr’s annual Whisky festival celebrates its tenth anniversary with the biggest array of Whiskies yet.

The national festival of gardening and outdoor living. Alys Fowler, Kate Rushworth and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers join the floral fun for this celebration of the garden. It includes show gardens, bonsai and floral art displays, and a cookery theatre and food fair.

Well-established as one of the best Celtic and Scottish music festivals in the country with a varied programme of seated concerts, ceilidhs and stomps across three days and nights. The festival line-up features some of the biggest names from the worlds of Scottish traditional and contemporary music.

Now in its fourth year, TweedLove is ten days of bike riding and good times in the iconic Tweed Valley in the Scottish Borders. TweedLove encompasses all things cycling – from road and mountain bike races that attract pro cyclists to family rides through Peebles town centre and informal jaunts into the hills guided by…

The island known for being Scotland in miniature presents a weekend of folk, with sessions, concerts and ceilidhs centred in Brodick.

Set in the stunning twin harbour towns of Banff and Macduff in north Aberdeenshire, Coast is predominantly a visual arts festival, with elements of performance and community participation. 2013's theme is artists' responses to nature, working outdoors or with natural materials.

Opening with a family ceilidh on the Friday evening, the weekend proceeds with a selection of workshops, sessions, open stage, family events and concerts, run by a folk club that's been in existence now for over 50 years.

The oldest continually running film festival in the world, the EIFF draws on its prestige to consistently present abundant programmes of new features, documentaries, retrospectives, shorts, panel discussions and educational workshops, with a few high profile premieres thrown in for good measure.