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Tickets for the 37th Orkney Folk Festival 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 –...

The musical connections between three of Scotland’s island groups – Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides – are to be celebrated at this year’s Orkney Folk Festival, with two collaborative concerts featuring celebrated musicians and singers from each of the areas. 

Leading western Isles vocalists Julie Fowlis and Kathleen MacInnes will appear alongside Shetland’s Jenny Keldie and Orcadian duo Saltfishforty – Douglas Montgomery and Brian Cromarty – in two unique productions over the festival weekend.

The five musicians will present a Between Islands concert on Friday, May 24, in the Stromness Town Hall. They, and the theme of connections between island groups, will then form the basis of the 2019 incarnation of the festival’s highly successful Gathering event, on Sunday, May 26, which will also take place in the festival’s flagship venue. 

The Between Islands artists join a stellar line-up already announced for the 37th annual festival, including Four Men and a Dog; Lau; Cara Dillon; Dermot Byrne, Éamonn Coyne and John Doyle; Kinnaris Quintet, The Poozies and Còig, amongst many more. 

These two special concerts are the first of the Between Islands projects – an initiative headed up by Alex Macdonald, of the...