GLOW Up: Edinburgh College's GLOW Festival returns

GLOW Festival is the annual exhibition of Edinburgh College graduates' work across a spectrum of artistic disciplines. Every year, an emerging generation of artists display their work in venues across Edinburgh, and we couldn't be more excited to see what 2025 has to bring. Students from the Schools of Art & Design, Media, Music & Sound Production, Performing Arts, Computing, and Photography are sharing their projects with the public, and everyone's invited. If you want to soak up some creativity this summer, we've put together our top recs from the programme.

Art and Design Graduate Exhibition 2025

City Art Centre, 4-15 Jun, 10am-5pm, free
If you’re a fan of the visual arts, GLOW has you covered. Graduates from Edinburgh College’s HND and BA courses in Graphic Design, Illustration, Textiles, 3D Animation and much more are displaying what they've been working on at the City Art Centre throughout June. This is a chance to see loads of innovative design, across a variety of mediums, from students who might one day be big names in the Scottish art scene.

Out The Box Festival

The Mash House, 12-15 May, 7-10pm, £5
Edinburgh College’s students have also been doing great work in Media, Music and Sound Production, with separate degree shows for contemporary and classical music taking place throughout the city. But be sure to stop by Out The Box Festival, a four-day slate of performances at The Mash House in Edinburgh’s Old Town featuring pop, rock, and a ton of great tunes that HNC and UAL graduates have been working on all year. The students are likely to be in a celebratory mood, so for those looking for a wild weekend in May, the Mash House is where it’s at.

Art & Design @ GLOW Festival. Image: Edinburgh College.

Lysistrata

PASS Theatre, 3-5 Jun, 2pm + 7pm, £9-12
A highlight from the School of Performing Arts is an adaptation of Lysistrata. The original comedy by Aristophanes sees the titular heroine lead a sex strike against the warring men of Ancient Greece, and students of the HN1 Acting and Performance course have adapted the script into a modern-day rock opera that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser when it comes to the Performing Arts Studio Scotland (PASS) Theatre in June. If you’re a fan of historically inventive pop musicals like Six or Hamilton, then this is an event for you.

ECGX

Codebase, 5 Jun, 5.30-8pm, free
Want something a little more interactive? The Edinburgh College Games eXpo is an event for all you button-mashers out there. You can play through the projects of HND students in courses like Computer Games Development and Digital Design, plus local indie game devs will be there to offer a serving of their unreleased titles. It’s a free, fun evening at Codebase on Castle Terrace, perfect for both casual gamers and high scorers curious about getting into game design.

Costume & MUA @ GLOW Festival. Image: Edinburgh College.

Costume and Makeup Artistry Showcase 2025

PASS Theatre, 21 May, 6.30pm, £5-7
Two Edinburgh College HND programmes – Costume for Stage and Screen, and Makeup Artistry – are joining up for an end-of-year catwalk. The collaborative costuming, makeup artistry, wigs and accessories on display might transport you from the PASS Theatre to Paris Fashion Week, but also keep a keen eye out for the impressive staging and hard work of the students on the HND Technical Theatre course. 

EXPOSED 25

Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 3-12 Jun (not 8), 10am-5pm, free
EXPOSED 25 exhibits the work of Edinburgh College’s graduating photography students. Coming to Out of the Blue are some breathtaking prints of visual storytelling and compositional skill. Students in this course are often award-winning photographers, so don’t miss this opportunity to see what truly fascinating things have been snapped over the course of last year.