The curtain has come down on the Scottish capital's festival season with a display of hundreds of thousands of fireworks lighting up Edinburgh Castle.
Thousands of people turned up at Princes Street Gardens and other vantage points across the city for what is the largest annual fireworks concert in the world.
More than 400,000 fireworks lit up the sky against the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle, choreographed to live orchestral music from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Kristiina Poska.
The annual Virgin Money Fireworks Concert, which provides the finale to the Edinburgh International Festival, commemorated 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare with excerpts from Romeo And Juliet and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
It takes a team of 15 people six days to lay out the four tonnes of fireworks for the event, including the famous waterfall which sees fireworks cascading over the castle's rocks.
Festival director Fergus Linehan, said: "At the end of three incredible weeks, all that remains is for us to thank the hundreds of artists and hundreds of thousands of audience members who continue to make the Edinburgh International Festival one of the wonders of the arts world.
"The International Festival has always been a place for people of all nationalities to meet and exchange ideas and we've seen that everywhere across the city these past three weeks.
"In uncertain times, events like this feel ever more important, and we at the International Festival are honoured to have been able to host, inspire, entertain and moreover welcome so many artists and visitors from all over the world to our city."
As well as the Edinburgh International Festival, the Festival Fringe, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh International Television Festival and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo all get under way in August making the city a hive of activity with 50,266 performances over 25 days.
Millions of people have visited the city throughout August to watch comedy, theatre and music shows as well as a number of free outdoor performances which mark the peak of the city's year-round festivals calendar and the height of its tourist season.
Almost 2.5 million tickets have been issued for 50,266 Fringe events, an increase of 7.7% on last year, while the Edinburgh International Festival has generated £4 million in ticket sales, surpassing last year's record.
This year marked Shona McCarthy's first as chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe society.
Ms McCarthy said: "In 2016, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has once again been a spectacular success, welcoming performers and audiences from across the globe, and issuing an estimated 2,475,143 tickets.
"We hope that all those who attended ticketed shows, as well as the thousands of people who attended the 643 free shows in the programme, truly enjoyed their Fringe experience.
"The Fringe plays an essential role in the global arts community, providing a platform for artists from around the UK and the rest of the world to showcase their work and make new connections. With 48 countries represented in this year's programme, the breadth and diversity of talent on offer has been astounding.
"We are now looking forward to our 70th anniversary celebrations in 2017 and hope that as many people as possible will join us to mark this fantastic milestone in the history of Edinburgh's festivals."
In 2015, Edinburgh's 12 major festivals generated £280 million of economic impact in Edinburgh and £313 million in Scotland while attracting audiences of more than 4.5 million people - on a par with the Fifa World Cup and second only to the Olympic Games.
Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Government cabinet secretary for culture, tourism and external affairs, said: "Music, theatre, dance and culture have been at the heart of the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival which is supported by the Scottish Government's Expo Fund.
"Over the last three weeks, we've witnessed a number of outstanding performances, including the flagship production, Flit by Martin Green to Karin Polwart's sell-out production Wind Resistance. I congratulate the International Festival on another hugely successful and diverse programme."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel