The Hidden Door festival will be taking over the former Scottish Widows complex on Dalkeith Road in Edinburgh for a five-day event.
From 31 May to 4 June 2023, audiences will be invited into the building to witness its transformation from an office space into a festival of music, performance and art.
The building, made up of a series of hexagonal shapes, was designed by architect John Hardie Glover. Opened in 1976, it closed in 2020 as Lloyds Banking Group moved out.
In June, plans were revealed to invest around £100m in turning the listed building into a mix of flats and office space. New owner Schroders Capital has appointed a design team led by Corran Properties, with Morgan Architects developing a solution to bring the building up to modern standards.
But before work begins, Hidden Door will turn the maze of office and utility spaces across the six-acre site into an immersive space for visual art, music, dance and spoken word performances.
The full programme will be announced early next year, with a call for visual artists, dancers, musicians and spoken word performers to get involved.
David Martin, creative director of Hidden Door, said: “This is the sort of building I’ve always dreamed about taking over for Hidden Door.
“It has a sort of ‘Tardis’ quality - although it does look pretty big from the outside, nothing quite prepares you for the expanse of spaces on the inside - you really could get lost in there.
“Every time we consider an empty building in Edinburgh we ask ourselves what we could do with it, and this one presents us with the opportunity to do something quite different,“ he continued, adding: “We will commission a series of projects that will see artists working with musicians, dancers, set designers, lighting artists and sound designers, all creating a series of experiential theatrical environments throughout the building for our audience to discover.“
Rebecca Gates, head of UK asset management with Schroders Capital’s property team, said: “Ahead of looking to breathe new life into this very important building, we are delighted to support Hidden Door Festival’s wonderful proposals to transform the vacant space into a temporary cultural arts venue which can be enjoyed by the public.”
Hidden Door 2023 is supported by Baillie Gifford, along with other partners and sponsors.
The organisers are working with the City of Edinburgh Council and other organisations to ensure the event will be safe and compliant.
Hidden Door is an arts organisation which aims to open up urban spaces as a platform for new and emerging artists, musicians, theatre makers, performers, film makers and poets based in Scotland.
The festival has steadily grown in size and reputation since it began in 2014, when it cleared out the abandoned Market Street vaults to run a nine-day arts festival.
The following year, it moved to a hidden courtyard behind Kings’ Stables Road, and returned in 2016, attracting more than 12,000 visitors. In 2017, the festival breathed new life into the old Leith Theatre, returning in 2018 and also taking up residence in the derelict former State Cinema, just around the corner.
During the pandemic, Hidden Door put on a series of online events, and returned to live events for a five-day outdoor event at Granton Gasworks in 2021. Earlier this year, the team took over the Old Royal High School on Calton Hill for a 10-day festival.
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