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The 37th Orkney Folk Festival kicks off in triumphant style today, Thursday, with artists from across the globe already settling into the county, amidst the sixth consecutive year of record breaking ticket sales.

Over 6,600 individual concert tickets have sold in advance of the festival opening, with 24 of the festival’s 36 ticketed events sold out in advance. This is both the highest volume of advance sales ever achieved in the voluntary-run festival’s 37-year tenure, as well as the greatest number of pre-festival sellouts. 

Stromness, the festival’s hometown in Orkney’s West Mainland, has already begun welcoming early arrivals, including some of this year’s furthest travelled visitors – Cape Breton’s globetrotting powerhouse quartet, Còig – as well as famed Irish singer Cara Dillon and Irish firebrands Four Men and a Dog, who are currently celebrating their 30th year on the road.

Whilst early arrivals are no rarity for the festival, a far greater number than usual are already in Orkney, owing to a one-day Air Traffic Controllers’ strike across Scotland’s Highlands and Islands taking place today. As well as the closure of Kirkwall Airport, Inverness – a hub for flights from Ireland and England,...

Tickets for the 37th Orkney Folk Festical are now on sale, exclusively from orkneyfolkfestival.com/tickets

Check out the festival programme, for a look at everything taking place over May 23-26, and come join us for an excellent weekend of tunes, songs and craic.

Tickets are moving very fast, though, so don’t hang around. At the time of writing, 10 out of our 36 gigs have sold out, with many more not far behind. We still have good availability across the weekend, but it’s already looking like another very busy year so best grab your tickets now. See you soon!

Just a wee reminder – ahead of tickets being released to Festival Patrons on Saturday morning – that due to changes within PayPal, we strongly recommend that all customers have an active PayPal account in order to speed up the payment process.

Even if you have previously been able to check out as a Guest (bypassing the PayPal account login and simply using a card) it is no longer guaranteed that you will be able to do so again. 

As a security measure, PayPal now limits the number and frequency of transactions that may be made via the Guest option, based on both IP and email addresses. Therefore, even if you bought Patronage without a PayPal account, you may find that you need to create one for ticket purchases. This is on an individual basis, and unfortunately we cannot predict whether or not the Guest option will be available to you. 

Customers outside the UK will not be able to use the Guest option. 

Whilst you can create a PayPal account when checking out with your order, we recommend doing so in advance (direct with PayPal.com). You do not need to...

No more waiting – the 2019 Orkney Folk Festival programme is now available to view. Right here!

The 37th festival programme comprises 36 concerts over four days, featuring some 52 artists from as far as Cuba and Cape Breton Island, as well as a very healthy contingent from Orkney’s own thriving folk scene. Old favourites are back, and newcomers – from home and away – make their debut appearances. It’s another bumper programme, and slightly reformatted to a more comprehensive festival guide: take a look!

We’ve a couple of major changes in 2019. The Festival Club is moving to a new, bigger, and largely custom-built home in the Stromness Community Centre (though not as you’ve ever seen it before…). Alongside, we now have three Farewell Concerts – hopefully satisfying demand for Sunday night tickets a wee bit better.

Dive in – have a look – it’s all here. Tickets go on advance sale to Festival Patrons on Saturday 13 April, and on general release a week later on Saturday 20 April.

Patronage can be bought up to April 6 –...