Festival Theatre

About the venue

Edinburgh Festival Theatre opened in 1994 as the flagship lyric theatre for Scotland.

Its annual programme as well as featuring opera and ballet also includes dance, large scale drama, musicals, variety shows, children’s shows and concerts – jazz, folk, popular and classical. It also boasts the second largest stage in Great Britain, a 1900 seat auditorium (formerly the Empire Theatre), a suite of three function rooms at Dress Circle level known as the Empire Rooms, an all-day cafe at street level and spacious foyer bars on two further levels with fabulous glass frontage. The main auditorium is occasionally available for large meetings, but the Empire Rooms, used in the evenings for corporate and private hospitality for theatregoers, are often available during the day for meetings and smaller conferences. The suite is a flexible space divided by high quality, easily moveable acoustic partitions and leads directly into the Johnnie Walker Bar which, when there is no show on, can also be used for informal meals and coffee breaks. Catering is managed in-house and can be adapted to suit both budget and occasion. The area is fully accessible and faces south onto the Theatre’s courtyard, which is quiet and sunny. The Theatre is five minutes walk from the Royal Mile, just past Chambers Street and is surrounded by, University of Edinburgh Old College, the Royal Museum of Scotland and the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.