Stately home lined up for ‘drive-in’ festival
● Live music, comedy, film and raves could all be featured in event
The grounds of a 17th century stately home on the outskirts of Edinburgh have been lined up for a summer drive-in festival offering raves, film screenings, live music and stand-up comedy.
Promoters are working with Hopetoun House, in South Queensferry, on plans for the “socially-distanced” event.
The week-long festival will be able to accommodate up to 300 vehicles if it gets the goahead from the authorities on public health and safety grounds.
Tom Ketley, founder of the Fly Open Air dance music festival, which has been staged at Hopetoun House in recent years, hopes the new event, which has been partly inspired by drive-in raves in Germany and Denmark, can be staged in July if lockdown restrictions are relaxed.
He is working with other promoters to try to take the concept to Glasgow and other parts of the UK, including Newcastle, Manchester, Bristol and London.
Mr Ketley, who is also behind the annual Fly Open Air festival in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh has revealed he is also working on plans for a “Drive-in Fringe” event in August, with King’s Stables Road targeted for the event.
Mr Ketley, who has been staging his Fly Open Air festival at Hopetoun House since 2016, said: “After a month of lying in bed and watching Netflix I just thought that really needed to think about how we are going to lie as an events business. The nature of events is people coming together and I can’t see that being possible for a long time.
“I’ve drawn inspiration from mainland Europe, where drive-in raves have started in Germany and Denmark. It looks like it’s been successful and has been done safely. It also looks like probably the only way people will be able to access any form of culture or entertainment for the foreseeable future.
“The first idea we had was for a drive-in rave and we already do events with DJS, but I thought that if we are building a stage and put in infrastructure like screens there’s no reason we couldn’t do drivein comedy, music and cinema. The list is almost endless.
“Planning is hard because we don’t know exactly when events will be permitted until the Scottish Government’s plan to come out of lockdown, but we are looking at dates in July at Hopetoun House for the first event before taking the concept on tour.
“Hopetoun House and the council are really keen on it, and the police have been very positive about it so far. They don’t want a mass rush of people going back to pubs. They want to promote entertainment via safe means.”