Launching on Belgian National Day (21 July) Heverlee at New Waverley will fuse Scottish and Belgian cultures by bringing some of Scotland’s best known names in food, music and art to create an exciting and diverse three day festival.
For the festival, street food market, The Pitt, will venture outside of Leith for a rare appearance in the city centre, joining forces with Firecracker Recordings to take-over the currently unused space for three days.
Over the micro-festival, Firecracker Recordings will programme a hand-picked line-up of eclectic electronic DJs to soundtrack the party atmosphere. Those playing include the likes of Charlie Bones of London’s underground radio station NTS and Edinburgh’s own Linkwood. Another big name on the bill will be LuckyMe Record’s Éclair Fifi, a Scottish DJ who has previously held slots on BBC Radio1.
Street food specialists The Pitt will be serving up a range of Belgian inspired dishes including; classics moules-frites and steak-frites and Carbonade flamande (a traditional Belgian beef stew) made with Heverlee beer.
For those looking for something sweet, mouth-watering traditional Belgian waffles will also be served.
Artist Fraser Gray, who runs arts organisation LeithLate’s highly successful Shutter Project and Mural Projects, will also be inviting a range of street artists to create one-off murals, taking cues from Belgian life, live across the weekend.
Belgium is one of the most prolific countries in the world for contemporary street art, with the city of Antwerp playing host to Meeting of Styles, an international street art tour which takes place annually in over sixteen countries.
Following their appearance at this year’s Hidden Door festival, Edinburgh’s projection specialists KinoKlub will be installing an immersive art installation in one of the arches, engulfing the space with Belgian themed animations and scenes from classic Belgian cinema.
Picture: Heverlee
On the Sunday, Picture House Pop Up will take over the arch for an exclusive screening of two feature length films, soon to be announced.
The full line-up of arts and entertainment will be available via Heverlee’s social channels in the weeks leading up to opening night.
At the bar, guests will have the chance to enjoy cold pints of Heverlee pilsner style lager, the recipe for which was inspired by master brewer, Joris Brams, after he found descriptions of a historical beer brewed by monks at the Abbey of the Order of Premontre, Leuven in 1129.
The team behind the event say guests will also get to try two limited Heverlee brews, created in Belgium especially for the event and revealed on the opening night.
Cans and bottles of Heverlee will be available at New Waverley, before they hit the shelves of shops and bars later this year.
Paying homage to the summer beer café culture of its home country, The team at Heverlee say the new event will build on the hugely successful Heverlee at Tontine pop-up Belgian beer café which ran during Glasgow’s Merchant City festival in 2015.
Heverlee’s Senior Brand Manager, Wendy Espie said: “When it comes to creating the ultimate summer beer garden atmosphere, there are fewer countries in the world that do it better than Belgium.
"We’re really excited to bring together a host of amazing talent to celebrate some of our favourite aspects of contemporary Belgian culture right here in Scotland.
"The New Waverley arches is a really unique space, and we can’t wait to let people see what we’ve got planned. If Glasgow’s Heverlee at Tontine was anything to go by, we’re sure this is going to be an amazing three days.”
The event will open on Friday the 21st, from 4pm to 11pm, Saturday (22nd) and Sunday (23rd) from 12pm to 11pm, and will be free to enter.
