It is a vast site on the doorstep of Edinburgh Airport which has hosted Scotland’s biggest agricultural event for more than 60 years.
But now the home of the Royal Highland Show is set to undergo a radical transformation into a year-round culture and events destination for the Scottish capital over the next decade.
An expanded programme of live music events, large-scale theatre productions and "immersive" exhibitions are planned under a future strategy for the Royal Highland Centre at Ingliston.
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New hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes and shops are hoped to be created around a new Wembley Way-style boulevard, which is proposed to link the centre with a new tram stop.
The shake-up is being planned after £25m worth of infrastructure improvements were made around the site in recent years.
The future vision for the site - which envisages the centre helping Edinburgh to compete more with Glasgow for major events and exhibitions - has been set out by managing director Mark Currie in an exclusive interview with The Herald.
He has revealed plans for a new programme of all-ticket outdoor events in July for future years under plans to turn the venue into a year-round culture, leisure and tourism “campus”.
The new blueprint for the Ingliston site has been drawn up in the wake of the successful relocation of the Edinburgh Summer Sessions festival from Princes Street Gardens three years ago.
Biffy Clyro, Nathan Evans, Skerryvore, Brooke Combe, Mogwai, The Cure, Florence and The Machine, Lorde, The Prodigy and Deftones are all due to appear at Ingliston this August.
At least one more headline act is expected to be added to the Summer Sessions line-up.
Next month will also see the new traditional music festival The Reeling becoming part of the Royal Highland Show for the first time after a three-year run at Rouken Glen Park, on the outskirts of Glasgow.
The Reeling - which is hoped to become an annual fixture at the show- will feature Breabach, Dlù, Dougie MacLean, Elephant Sessions, Kinnaris Q and Skipinnish in its inaugural year at Ingliston.
Mr Currie said he hoped to build on the success of the multi-media exhibitions celebrating the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet last Christmas, and theatre productions like Macbeth, which brought Ralph Fiennes to Ingliston the previous winter.
All of the above is a far cry from what Mr Currie can recall of the cultural offer when he arrived at the centre to take up a job as head of operations in 2015.
He said: “The Royal Highland Centre used to be very much about the Royal Highland Show. Everything was geared towards putting on the show.
“We have completely changed direction. We are now a venue that hosts the Royal Highland Show, as well as a plethora of other events.
“The investment decisions we make are about improving the venue all year round, they are not just about the show.
“When I joined the Royal Highland Centre I remember thinking what a great festival site it would be. There were lots of trees and a lot of grass, but it also had hard-standing roads, toilet blocks and fencing around the site.
“We have spent around £25 million on the site since I arrived here. A lot of that has been investment in unsexy stuff like water, power and fibre, but that has really helped us on the live music side.
“That investment has opened us up to a whole different client base that just did not look at us as a viable option before.
“We built a new pavilion, primarily as a members’ restaurant area for the show, but we also use it as the VIP space for the Summer Sessions. We get consistent feedback that we have the best VIP experience in the country.”
A key factor in the long-term strategy of the Royal Highland Centre is the prospect of around 20,000 homes being built by various developers.
Mr Currie said he expected there to be demand to create at least six new hotels on the doorstep of the centre, with planning permission already in place for three, including a Radisson Red development on the scale of the one next to the Hydro arena in Glasgow.
Mr Currie said: “The whole landscape of west Edinburgh will have changed significantly. We are no longer going to be out on the edge of the city. We are going to be surrounded by a whole new city. That is a huge opportunity for us.
“At the moment, we are looking where we invest, and how we become a social and cultural asset for the west of the city. We are going to need to adapt and change.
"In 10-15 years' time, we will still be the home of the Royal Highland Show. There is no doubt about that.
"But we need to be an arts, culture, events and leisure destination for Edinburgh that you would come to for a night out.
“We need to break the feeling for people who live in Edinburgh that it is a challenge to get out to Ingliston.
“We are exploring ways to connect our front door to the tram network. That probably looks like a boulevard which will have a mix of leisure, retail, food and drink.
“The idea is you will come off the tram in future and have a short walk which feels connected, like the Wembley Way in London.
“We are sitting adjacent to the busiest city for tourism in the UK outside London and by far the best airport in Scotland. We need to take advantage of that.”
Although the Royal Highland Show was attracting more than 50,000 on its busiest days, there was virtually no entertainment included in the price of a ticket when Mr Currie arrived.
He recalled: “There were parties going on down in the cattle lines and sheep lines, but we weren’t really part of that. There was a wee truck stage, where cover bands played.
“Our bars and catering have changed massively over the last five years. We have 23 bars on site and every one of them has entertainment and performances on every day of the show. It has really transformed the show for us.”
The Royal Highland Show introduced a music festival element for in 2023 as an experiment. The Royal Highland Hoolie, which ran for three years, featured leading trad acts like Tide Lines, Trail West, Peatbog Faeries, Skipinnish, Shooglenifty, Valtos, Project Smok, Nathan Carter and Cammy Barnes.
Mr Currie said: “We did the Royal Highland Hoolie events off the back of the big top concerts here a few years ago.
“We knew that we could sell tickets for a night-time event. People have still got energy after the show and are wanting to be entertained. We have put something on for them and they have grabbed it.
“We have had a mix of Scottish and Irish acts over the last few years.
“We have partnered with The Reeling this year. The line-up really is a celebration of the best of Scottish music. There is so much talent out there at the moment.
“We are giving these performers the chance to showcase themselves on a big stage, perhaps to an audience who would not otherwise see them.
“It’s a lovely site that we use for The Reeling. It has a capacity of around 10,000. We had about 6000 in on the Saturday last year, which felt really good. I think we will probably get to about 7000 this year.
“We are trying to sell tickets for The Reeling to both the audience who are coming to the show, but also to the general public. You don’t need to come to the show to go to The Reeling."
The Ingliston site has a long history of hosting major music gigs dating back to the 1970s, including appearances by David Bowie, Genesis, Queen, Big Country, The Jam, Rush, Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Madness, The Police and Duran Duran.
However its indoor and outdoor spaces had largely fallen out of use by the music industry until DF Concerts started using it for the first time in more than 20 years after the Covid pandemic, including big top concerts in 2022, and a short-lived revival of its Connect festival in 2022 and 2023.
The Edinburgh Summer Sessions festival relocated from Princes Street Gardens to a much bigger site at Ingliston in 2023. Paolo Nutini, Chappell Roan, Sam Fender, Catfish and The Bottlemen, Ocean Colour Scene, The View have all since performed August shows for crowds of up to 30,000. At least eight are expected to be staged this summer.
However Mr Currie said there was now “a big window of opportunity” to stage more outdoor events in a traditional “fallow period” at Ingliston in July.
A gap in the calendar has emerged thanks to a drive to reduce the amount of time needed to build and take down all the temporary infrastructure needed for the Royal Highland Show.
He added: “We have gone out to the market to let everyone know that Edinburgh is available for those type of events in July.
“We sold 90,000 tickets for three shows last year between Chappell Roan and Sam Fender. That gives real confidence to artists, labels, management and agents.
“We’re trying to get into the minds of people that they are playing the capital of Scotland.
“I think between ourselves and Murrayfield, over the last five years we have really put Edinburgh on the map for live music and become big competition for Glasgow. Both cities are now doing really well and punching above their weight.
“Those Summer Sessions concerts generated £19m for Edinburgh’s economy last summer. About 10 per cent of that audience came from outwith Scotland.”
