The Hub

The Hub is Edinburgh's Festival centre.  This unique and artistic venue provides a year round focus and symbolic heart for Edinburgh's festivals reflecting their importance in the life of the city. Above all it is a building for people and a glorious celebration of the creativity and fun of Edinburgh's festivals.

The Hub was created as a home for the Edinburgh Festival Society at the Highland Tolbooth, situated at the top of the Royal Mile at Castle Hill. It was one of the Scottish Arts Council’s earliest National Lottery funded projects. 

The Hub was awarded funding in 1995, the first year that National Lottery funding began to benefit the arts in Scotland. 

The building which houses The Hub used to be the Church of Scotland's Tolbooth St John's Church, 1839-44.  The tip of the 50m-high 'black dagger' spire is the tallest built work in Edinburgh.

The award which enabled the conversion of the Highland Tolbooth, an A-listed former Assembly Hall, was made to: create a year round visitor attraction, with the opportunity to generate income from the Festival's worldwide reputation; meet the practical needs of the Society for a headquarters building create a real and symbolic home for the Festival visitor

The Scottish Arts Council awarded £3,900,000 of National Lottery funds towards the £7,000,000 cost of the project.  The project was finished in 1997 - in time to celebrate the Edinburgh Festival's 50th anniversary.

The Hub, designed by Benjamin Tindall Architects, is a mixture of retail, catering and ticket outlets, combined with a year-round Festival Club and Hall, visitor centre, press facilities and offices for the Festival Society.  These spaces are provided over five levels: from the kitchen in the basement up to the offices in the roof space, with the majority of activities taking place in the existing spaces of the building.  Although the Edinburgh Festival Centre is not an arts performance space, the Hall is made available for rehearsals, functions and performances.  Office accommodation is also available to other arts organisations.

Commissioning the unique range of art and craft works for The Hub was a vitally important part of the process of the building's renovation.  It accounted for approximately 6% of the total project cost as seven artists/crafts-people were commissioned to create a series of remarkable artworks for the building.

• Carole Vincent's work in coloured concrete invites the public into the building, in the manner of a 'Red Carpet'.
• Jill Watson decorated the Main Stair with over 200 plaster figures on shelves, representing past Festival performances of dance, music, theatre and opera.
• Keiko Mukaide invented the multi-layered glass tiles that form the double track along the central corridor of The Hub. 
• Jacqui Poncelet designed the lively terrazzo panelling on the ground floor, using a contemporary, repetitive pattern.
• David Ward's light sculpture illuminates the central corridor with words written in yellow neon light.
• Chris Shaw designed and made the Dunard Library windows to bring brightness into the room on the dullest of days. 
  Steven Newell created the great west window in the Main Hall.
• Squigee designed the textile used for the Main Hall wall coverings in The Hub.

The Edinburgh International Festival attracts a wide ranging audience, comprising: 39% from Edinburgh, 24% from the rest of Scotland, 22% from the UK and 15% from overseas. Over 160,000 people come through the doors of the Centre, which is open 52 weeks a year.

The Edinburgh International Festival Society, based at The Hub, was founded in 1946.  The Festival Council, has a nine-member Executive Committee, a delegate to the Festival Director & a Chief Executive.  There is a permanent staff of 17.