Inverness is set to stage what is believed to be the largest Hogmanay ceilidh on the planet.
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00:00 So this holiday, we've turned things around a wee bit.
00:03 We're going to celebrate Highland culture and music
00:06 and we're going to have the biggest holiday,
00:08 Keighley, you could possibly imagine.
00:11 That Keighley is going to involve music, dancing, song
00:16 and take back what a real Keighley is.
00:18 And I suppose we're kind of stepping back in time, you know,
00:21 that sense of community, of people getting together
00:24 and celebrating what we are amazing at.
00:27 And in the Highlands, we are amazing at music and song
00:30 and dance and culture.
00:32 It's what we have oodles of here.
00:34 So this year for Folk Monet, we've got some of the best artists
00:39 that you could possibly imagine.
00:41 We've got everyone from Siobhan Nolan,
00:42 who is the BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year.
00:46 We have Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton
00:49 from the Treacherous Orchestra.
00:51 We have Ewan Robertson from Breivik.
00:53 And we are delighted to announce
00:55 that we also have Noddy MacIvor from Skipperish,
00:58 who are going to interspace our Keighley with some great song.
01:02 Our Keighley bands are the great Hurro
01:06 who are well known throughout the Highlands
01:08 and really are one of the most sought after Keighley bands
01:12 in the whole of Scotland.
01:13 So they're going to lead our dancing.
01:15 We're going to have dance masters throughout the audience.
01:18 So if you can't quite remember those Gay Gordons
01:20 and those Strip the Willows from your school days,
01:23 we're going to have people on hand to help.
01:25 So what we're hoping is that this is going to be
01:27 one massive Highland Hogmanay fully.
01:31 What's the difference about this Hogmanay
01:32 compared to previous ones?
01:34 Well, actually, it still has the warm Highland welcome
01:39 that all the previous Hogmanays always had.
01:42 So we're keeping all the best bits
01:44 that we've had for many years now, which people love,
01:47 and building on them, building on the experience
01:50 that people want to have now when they come to an event.
01:53 They're not just going to be sung to,
01:55 they're going to be part of the event themselves.
01:58 So this is the great thing.
01:59 It will build on community involvement,
02:02 people socialising and doing what they want to do
02:05 on Hogmanay.
02:06 And where better to do it than in the Highlands
02:09 and in the capital of the Highlands in Inverness.
02:12 The aim of this Hogmanay is to make the audience
02:15 part of the event, to give them a sense of pride
02:18 in being part of something,
02:20 not just the spectacle that they've come to see,
02:23 but they can go away and talk to their friends
02:25 and talk to their family and say,
02:27 I took part, I took part, not just attended,
02:30 I took part in a real traditional Highland Hogmanay,
02:34 a real traditional ceilidh.
02:36 Would you say that these changes initiated
02:38 is a step forward of putting Inverness on the map?
02:42 I think it plays to the strength that the city has
02:44 as the city in the Highlands,
02:46 and that we have in the Highlands.
02:48 And it plays to our warmth, our camaraderie,
02:51 our welcoming nature, to welcome anyone from anywhere.
02:56 And I think that's the key message
02:57 that comes out of this Hogmanay.
02:59 There wasn't any status behind changing it up,
03:02 it was time.
03:03 And we just knew that if we didn't change,
03:07 it was just gonna go downhill.
03:09 And we can't afford to do that from a tourism perspective,
03:13 we've got to set the bar, and that's what we've done.