The early bird tickets to next year’s 26th HebCelt festival, set in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, have attracted unprecedented demand and sold out in a record-breaking four and a half hours.
The festival, which is set to run over 12-15 July 2023, has sold its full quota of early bird tickets. The tickets which were frozen at 2022 prices provide access to the HebCelt Main Arena and were snapped up by eager festival goers both locally and from around the world, including from Germany, Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand.
This follows on from the success of the festival’s pandemic bounce-back 25th anniversary in July this year, where HebCelt sold out with the highest ticket sales, revenue and attendances in its history.
Festival Director, Graham MacCallum said: “Everyone here at team HebCelt has been absolutely blown away by the support we’ve received with this ticket demand from our loyal local audience as well as our national and international festival family.
“We knew going into 2022 that we would have many challenges to navigate, owing not only to issues caused by global and national events in the last few years but also to the simple fact that we have had two fallow years where a live event of this scale was simply not possible. We are continually grateful to the community and all those who support the festival in allowing us to continue hosting the event and championing our rich culture and island setting on a global stage.
“The success of our Early Bird release is a true testament to how well our 25th-anniversary event was received. This is due in no small part to the incredible volunteer teams behind the event who put in a tremendous amount of work to make HebCelt 2022 the resounding success that it was which has given us a springboard for 2023.”
Those who missed out on the early bird release are encouraged to sign up to the festival mailing list to ensure they don’t miss upcoming news about the full 2023 ticket allocation release and line-up announcements.
Creative Scotland, EventScotland and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar are all leading supporters of HebCelt.