Light the Blue 2024 was the biggest and best year yet with 13 packed days of theatre, music, dance, workshops and performances across Aberdeen. The festival featured 21 events, 7 venues and 8 stages. Young families, teenagers and emerging artists alike were invited to step in to the world of performing arts, creating opportunities for over 1,000 young people in the process and watched by almost 5,000 people. The festival brought together organisations from around Scotland and beyond, with collaborations including Imaginate, Look Again, Scottish Culture and Traditions (SC&T), Big Noise Torry and many more.

For Young People, By Young People

Light the Blue wouldn’t be Light the Blue without our dedicated group of young people who play a vital part in shaping the festival.

Our Young Advisors are a group who partake in the planning and organisation of the events, as well as helping to run the shows on the day. They even have their own dedicated event TAKEOVER, where the Music Hall is theirs to do exactly that. Their creativity and input are priced components of what makes this festival so enjoyable for young people.

We also have our dedicated Youth Theatre groups devising their own performances and our very own music producers composing music for shows. These groups allow young people as little as 5, all the way up to 18, to take their first steps into arts and culture by performing on stage and in front of an audience.

By empowering young people with these opportunities we can help them to discover, experiment and explore what the arts means to them. Leading them through their first steps to new horizons.

Schools

We committed to engaging with young people who don’t have access to regular creative activity. As such, we ran school projects and partnerships as part of Light the Blue 2024:

• We took the festival to Skene Square School with our artist in residence programme where we worked with every pupil over the course of a week to create a playground show inspired by the title Everyone Is Welcome Here. The initiative culminated in a fun and educational performance day featuring music, drama, dance and more.

“My daughter was part of the LTB performance at Skene Square. It was absolutely amazing to see the whole school engaged in this but most importantly the kids ALL had huge smiles on their faces. 😀”

– Parent

Partnerships

We could not have pulled off another great year without the many cultural organisations and key partnerships across Aberdeen and beyond that are dedicated to facilitating the arts for young people. In 2024 we had a whopping 29 professional artists, 128 arts facilitators and 37 partner organisations. Here’s just a few that happened.

Our Production Pathways event was supported by Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums and North East Scotland College where we introduced arts careers to over 75 young people from S4-6.

Showing young teenagers the possibilities within Theatre Production from the technical lights, sound and stage, to stage design, prop making and costume making.

EMERGE was a day of networking, conversations, workshops and performances focused on connecting, supporting and inspiring early career creatives aged 18-30 from Aberdeen & the North-East.

With industry guests from National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish Youth Theatre, Aberdeen Arts Centre, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, Ten Feet Tall Theatre Company and featuring Scottish artists Morna Ross and Imogen Stirling.

Scottish Culture and Traditions Youth, Aberdeen City Music Service and Big Noise Torry joined us once again to present The Big Gig, an event showcasing the musical talent of young people.

Hundreds of young people came together on the Music Hall stage to perform in front of a large audience, showcasing their fantastic abilities and the wonderful talent we have in the region.

Citymoves Dance Agency continues to be an integral part of Light the Blue, involved in several events across the programme and will always be a key ambition for future festivals.

We are grateful that we have local agencies like Citymoves who makes sure that there is access and options available for all young dancers to take part and hit the stage.

Youth Theatre projects

Aberdeen Performing Arts Youth Theatre Groups collaborated to present The Circus of Life and Death at the Lemon Tree, featuring music specially composed by the arts organisation’s group of young music producers, Beats & Rhymes.

Light the Blue will return in 2025 with to celebrate the young creatives from the region and beyond – we’ll see you there!