Scottish traditional musicians taking on Taylor Swift's Edinburgh concert weekend

Some of the most talented emerging musicians in Scotland will take on Taylor Swift this June as an upcoming traditional music festival is set to collide with the superstar's sold-out Edinburgh concerts.

Swift will bring her record-breaking Eras Tour to the Scottish capital's Murrayfield stadium for three consecutive nights between June 7 and June 9. During the same weekend, The Reeling festival in Glasgow will be held on Saturday and Sunday.

The festival, which will take place in the city's Rouken Glen Park, will bring together some of the biggest names in the Scottish trad music scene such as Elephant Sessions and Niteworks. Organisers and performers say they are confident that Scots music fans will not be tempted by the allure of the biggest musician in the world.

Michael Pellegrotti, a music promoter based in Glasgow, created The Reeling in 2023 after seeing hype growing around traditional music. He commented: "I’ve ran Skye Live, a traditional music festival, since 2015 and we’ve had the privilege of watching a new wave of traditional musicians grow in stature — and that is ultimately what inspired The Reeling.

"Scotland is such a small country, so you do worry that the audience can get swallowed up when you're up against someone as big as Taylor Swift with a capacity of 220k people. But traditional music has this strong, dedicated following and community around it — so I'm sure the Traddies will be out in force, just like the Swifties."

Laura Wilkie, fiddle and song player from Kinnaris Quintet, added: "While it might seem daunting to be playing the same weekend as Taylor Swift, I think the trad community has grown and I have every confidence in all the artists’ abilities to put on a great show. We are in an age where we can access any kind of music we want from all over the world, and people are drawn to something they can identify with or that is ‘local’ by comparison.

"It’s a hugely vast musical landscape and I think traditional music has become a lot more diverse in terms of representation and subgenres of traditional music. There’s something for everyone and people playing the music on stages reflects a broader demographic — so more people can relate and identify with ‘trad’ as an overarching term for the music they listen to or go and enjoy live."

The 5,000-capacity festival will see the Glasgow Southside park brought to life with world-class performances spanning two stages. Elsewhere, it will feature a dedicated kids area and high-quality Scottish food and drink offerings from vendors such as Birch coffee and Screaming Peacock.

Closing out the event will be a high-energy performance from multi award-winning Scottish supergroup Mànran. Kim Carnie, who fronts the band, said the growth in traditional music fans is largely down to artists offering more to younger listeners.

The Oban musician commented: "There’s certainly been a shift in the way people create traditional music recently — it caters more to a younger audience. Genre crossover has been a massive part of that — we’re not afraid to explore outside of the parameters of the expected folk and traditional sounds, which draws more people in.

"Since coming out of lockdown, there's been a lot more focus on a show being an experience. We travel with our own lighting engineer in Mànran and have introduced larger soundscapes to our live shows — the scene is raising the game. We want people to leave our shows saying, ‘what an incredible experience’, not just ‘that was a couple of nice tunes’."

The Reeling festival returns to Rouken Glen Park on Saturday June 8 and Sunday June 9. More information is available on its website.

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