•• Sink or Swim? ••

Sink or Swim.

Our founder Graham Main tells us how we have streamlined the programme and the part our loyal audience can play.

We were blown away by how much Big Burns Supper meant to everyone. Particularly our community here across Dumfries & Galloway.

We got to see just how many emails and letters went to the Scottish Government. It brought a tear to our eyes and compelled us to keep on going.

However, our come back will need to be slow and steady, our last major edition was in 2020. We won’t be able to scale up to that level instantly. We will take our time. Fill up smaller venues and show that the demand for the festival is still there.

Support for the arts is taking a battering. We’re not back because we’ve been handed loads of money. We’re back because we remodelled and got brilliant people around the table to help us do that.

The 2025 festival will include headline shows blended with top notch homegrown talent. It’s what we do best.

Rock Fit on 17th January by Stuart Walker. Local fitness group Functional Coach creates a healthy option for the first night of the festival.

We won’t be running a major festival hub, instead we are working with a range of venues and partners to come up with a programme that spreads the BBS magic across the whole town.

You are going to love what we have got planned. Our local pubs and venues have been working just as hard as we have on the programme.

Big Burns Supper was always unique in that most of our income (94%) was made up by our loyal audience and hard-working team of artists and volunteers who made it all possible. Audience spend is down since Covid and that makes us extremely vulnerable.

You might be wondering how you can support this little festival? It is pretty easy actually:

Buy tickets for you and your pals. If you can afford it, treat them
Treat the grandkids (we have lots of kids stuff)
Invite people to Dumfries and make a weekend of it.
Drop in a volunteer with us Monday 10-2, Tuesday 10-2 or Wednesday 4-8

Local Dance Artists Holly and Ashley are out in schools creating the spectacular show for Dumfries Carnival. Image by Stuart Walker.

Carnival is back with local school children taking part. Pupils from Lincluden Primary School, Dumfries dressed for as the MTV generation.Image by Stuart Walker

Our programme will look like this:

We will be testing out loads of new ideas, as well as bringing back our much-loved Dumfries Carnival which will launch the festival. We hope to add in a few new elements to that by extending it to a three-day event.

We understand how skint everyone is, and we’ve kept Carnival as free or as low cost as possible. Money shouldn’t be a barrier to us coming together.

Everyone can get involved by attending one of our lantern hubs which we will open just after Christmas at the Ice Bowl on 30^th December.

On Burns Night – we will go live to the world from the Loreburn Hall with a star-studded Burns Night like no other on earth. This will also be broadcast free on Facebook so you can watch at home or down the local.

Our final weekend will run from the 31^{st of} Jan – 2^nd Feb and will include lots of international music and cabaret nonsense at Theatre Royal and Loreburn Hall.

We’re also introducing a new concept called Supper Club in partnership with Midsteeple Quarter which will see us open a pop-up restaurant and cabaret lounge on the High Street.