Just Festival to Cease After This Year

Wednesday July 16 2025

This year’s Just Festival in Edinburgh will be the last in its current format, it has been announced.

The announcement was made as the programme was unveiled for this year’s festival, the 25th, which includes a weekend-long Festival of Faiths at Lauriston Castle between August 15 and 17, as well as musical and theatre events at St John’s Church on Princes Street.

The organisers said the reasons for ceasing the festival are ‘mixed and multifaceted’, including funding challenges as well as ‘the landscape of Edinburgh festivals’ which they say has seen ‘socially conscious programming coming increasingly to the fore of many of the major festivals’.

They added that the festival’s ethos would continue through the work of the Global Centre for Peacebuilding and Business, a worldwide Anglican church initiative aiming to build peacebuilding and reconciliation processes. St John’s is one of two churches in the UK invited to be a Cornerstone Church as part of the project.

Founded by St John’s at the turn of the Millennium, Just Festival began its life as the Festival of Spirituality, before being known as the Festival of Spirituality and Peace. In 2012, it became an independent charity, and its name was changed to Just Festival, marking its emphasis on programming around issues of social justice.

The Festival of Faiths, held in partnership with Museums and Galleries Edinburgh and funded by the City of Edinburgh 900 Fund, will include a range of events from members of the city’s Baha’I, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Pagan communities.

Events at St John’s include not only a series of free lunchtime concerts, but a partnership with Bethany Christian Trust, who are presenting five performances of their play insiders, which focuses the lives and stories of three male prisoners as they grapple with issues surrounding identity, religion and faith.

Festival Director Miranda Heggie said “It has been an honour and a privilege to lead this truly special festival over the past four years. It’s been a joy to work with an array of inspiring artists and speakers to address serious global issues in a creative, engaging and often fun manner, and I am very grateful for all we’ve achieved with a small team and even smaller budget! To see this iteration of our festival draw to a close is of course bittersweet, but it is very much time for change, and I am excited to see what the future holds!”

All events are free. See the full programme, and links to book, at https://www.just-festival.org/2025-events/ 

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