Introducing the Festival City Volunteers Family

Over three years from 2017 to 2019, the Edinburgh Festival City Volunteers project was supported to bring together the expert local knowledge of Edinburgh's people and the thousands of visitors who make our festival city so special.  On this page you can find out more about the project and read just some of the stories of our fantastic volunteers.

Festival City Volunteers came from a truly inclusive mix of city residents who work as ambassadors during Edinburgh’s peak summer festivals season, welcoming visitors to Edinburgh, giving directions and providing advice during the month of August. The project connected volunteers with Edinburgh’s unique cultural experiences and a high proportion of participants continue to engage with further opportunities, and with each other, all year round.

The lead project partners were Festivals Edinburgh and Volunteer Edinburgh. The project was enabled by core funding from City of Edinburgh Council and EventScotland (2016-17), Spirit of 2012 (2018) and National Lottery Community Fund (2018-19), and by additional support from Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Airport. Without each one of them we would not have been able to develop the project and we thank them all for their founding commitment.

We have connected with the community through an ever increasing network of third sector partners, with particular support from: IntoWork; Access to Industry; The Welcoming and The Thistle Foundation.

Generous in-kind support is also given through many different forms including project advocacy, expert advice, training and provision of volunteer spaces by all member festivals, VisitScotland, Central Library, City Arts Centre, St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh College, Social in the Gardens, Edinburgh College and the Equality and Rights Network

Since 2017 FCV has trained and deployed 254 volunteers (42 in 2017, 120 in 2018 and 92 in 2019 ) from over 30 countries, every Council ward in Edinburgh and ages 18-81. Our volunteers have completed 5,820 volunteering hours, 3,500 training hours and have interacted with 46,193 visitors. All of this information and much, much more can be found in our main evaluation report [published March 2020].

More information on future festival and other volunteering opportunities in Edinburgh is available from Volunteer Edinburgh here.