Connect festival is mere days away from its electrifying launch at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre Showground and we have an exclusive first look at the site. With four stage’s boasting heavyweight headliners and your soon to be favourites, the Forage & Feast area with a mouth watering collection of street food vendors sure to ignite your taste buds, to the Rest & Be Thankful tent where you can kick back and find your inner zen, there’s something for everyone and more at Connect this weekend. We spoke to Event Manager Katt Lingard about what we can expect from this weekend.
What’s so special about Connect?
What’s really key about Connect is that it’s about so much more than just the music. The music is exceptional – I haven’t seen a line-up like this all summer. But it’s the other experiences that we wrap around it and try to really bring to the forefront as well. Like comedy, spoken word, debates and conversations. We’re working with some really interesting local charities as well that are music-orientated and environmentally-oriented.
We also are working on some extra special spaces and experiences that you can take part in. Like the chef’s table, working with Barry Bryson who is a hometown hero in Edinburgh in terms of the food events that he puts on. And really it’s a chance to think about connecting with like-minded people. After a couple of years of people feeling separated and not getting to see their favourite bands and their favourite people and now you can have all of that in one place.
What do you think are going to be the highlights of the weekend?
It’s really difficult to choose my highlights for the weekend, but I certainly encourage everybody to go and spend some time in the middle and get involved with our wellness activities and jump into this speakeasy as well for our talks and panellists and comedians that are in there. There’s a lot of known names and there’s some of the most renowned acts from this year’s Fringe Festival in there, so it’s a fantastic chance to get to see them in Edinburgh at Connect.
Also, I’d really recommend the Tiny Changes x Gardeners Cottage, we’ve been working with the Tiny Changes charity throughout the planning phase to create a really special, intimate environment there where it’s stripped back. It’s just about the act, the music and the people, the fans that want to connect with them about it. So it will be a really special place. Other than that, we’ve obviously got an incredible line-up which is so diverse and has so much depth and breadth across it. There’s plenty to see and do. There won’t be a boring minute.
Which artists are you looking forward to seeing?
I’m excited to see IDLES. I haven’t had a chance to catch their live show yet and I know that they are going to bring something really different and special to Connect. But for them to be followed up by John Hopkins afterwards is something I never ever thought that I would see. So I’m really excited about that.
The full lineup and stage info is available here.
26th – 28th AUGUST 2022