Celebrating its 10th year, Hidden Door 2025 was a triumph of imagination, community, and creative risk-taking. It wasn’t just a festival—it was an experience. A journey through sound, sight, touch, hearing and flavour that left you changed, inspired, and already counting down the days until next year. Edinburgh’s Hidden Door Festival once again proved why it’s one of Scotland’s most daring and imaginative cultural events. This year, it took over a disused paper factory on the city’s western edge, transforming it into a surreal, immersive playground of music, art, dance, and performance. From the 11th–15th June, the venue pulsed with life as over 100 artists brought their visions to life across every rusted pipe and forgotten corridor.
Sunday: Spoken Word, Jazz and Dance
Sunday brought a more eclectic energy. Musical offerings, were still coming in abundance throughout the final day. Stuart Brown performed his final residency with his creation MNDMTH from 2.30pm and Electronic and experimental songwriter and musician, Nick Dow, put on an awe inspiring performance on the Jack Daniels stage. This was shortly followed by the amazing Glasgow based band Humour, who are making big waves in the Scottish music scene at the moment and their performance at Hidden Door just solidified why. They really give off star quality, the type you used to find in the early Nirvana days…check them out if you get a chance!
Also taking to the stage were Scottish experimental Jazz collective Slow Karma who were great to watch live, especially in a space with such great acoustics. They combined so many different elements in the set. Some songs were more funk orientated with spoken word and old school hip hop vibes while others started off more melodic and erupted into a crescendo of heavy guitar licks. Definitely a journey for the ears, and would highly recommend for those who like to discover something a little bit different from the normal more mundane jazz that some might expect.
Keeping in a similar genre were ,Y, a London based band who also blur the lines seamlessly between old timey jazz and more modern electronica, punk and hip hop. I particularly loved the off beat and sometimes deliberately off key vocals from Sophie Coppin and soulful Saxophone skills from Harry McHale. Later in the day we took in MC Yallah & Debmaster who brought fierce East African hip-hop energy, getting the vibes amped up for the evening. Bee Asha also offered a deeply personal and emotionally charged set that resonated with the crowd.
Art in Every Corner
The venue itself was the star of the show. The Crane Room hosted ambient and experimental sets, including Spectral’s eerie sound design and captivating performances over the five days. While the Factory Floor became a stage for dance and performance art. Visual installations were tucked into every corner—from textile sculptures to projection-mapped machinery—and the Edinburgh International Mural Festival added bursts of color to the courtyard.
We have to mention an absolutely breathtaking, collaborative performance we enjoyed, called Production Line of Dreams, which was an amazing mix of visual art in the form of videography from video production specialist Eve King and Analog Videographer VJ. This was combined with powerful choreography and interpretive dance from Suzi Cunningham and poetic music from the wonderful Acolyte Band. The performance as a whole was extremely powerful and thought provoking.
Ghost in the Machine was another immersive and collaborative piece running each day throughout the festival, on the Factory Floor. This combined elements of visual art and physical theatre, with dance, costumes and drumming to create a site specific exhibit created by Jill Martin Boualaxai. The vision was to create a piece of art ‘exploring memory, transformation, and industrial folklore through movement, drawing, and sculptural installation’. The Sativa Drummers who we had taken in the day before in their own performance, were also part of this performance. It was an interesting piece to watch, and really brought a new appreciation for me, for this type of modern art.
The End is Near
As the night started winding down we took a final walk around and really got a chance to take in this amazing and vast space. As we stood looking at the colorful works called Battlecat by talented artist Adam Hogarth, we realized this would probably be the last time people would get to walk around in this amazing set of buildings, and it be used for such an amazing event. This left a rather melancholy hue lingering in the air. However, the night went on and the final musical performance came from the instrumental Ishmael Ensemble, whose jazz-infused electronica created a lush, cinematic soundscape that felt like a perfect farewell to the festival.
As we took in a final drink at the bar, we got talking with some volunteers, who expressed how emotional they all were, now that it had come to an end for another year. I think a lot of this emotion was created from the bittersweet realization that they had all worked so hard and achieved such an amazing five days of art, music and culture that the wind down was almost a slight anti-climax.
What a festival! I love how open, collaborative, accepting and safe this space felt for all who entered. It really was an opportunity, for those who already love art, to come along and discover new things, but also a space for those who don’t know art at all, to discover a new love. I learned more in these short two days about the different forms that art can come in, which I was completely naive to before, and for this I am now a fully fledged supporter and lover of Hidden Door.
We can’t wait to see what the team bring next year and what other amazing emerging artists from all genres get the chance to showcase their talents through such an amazing platform. Go give them a follow to keep up to date with all the latest news and to see more highlights from the festival.
Qulture Magazine 
Leave a comment