We return to George Heriots School Gym. An institution that dates back to the dark days before Smallsword was invented!

This has two big advantages: location and facilities.

In terms of Location Heriots is within central Edinburgh. The entrance we use is on the Grassmarket, which is directly below Edinburgh Castle. Being at the heart of the tourist area of the city, there are huge amounts of accommodation options available meaning no taxi rides each each day! It is also home to many pubs and eating places for lunches, and our evenings can all be in the same area.

The Facilities are also excellent. We will not only have access to a large gym hall, we also have a second smaller dance studio room which can be used for break out sessions, 1 to 1s and freeplay. Plus, both have sound systems for Ian’s terrible music. On top of this we have access to a classroom which will allow us to host our lunchtime lectures.

To access the gym you need to go to Hunters Close off the Grassmarket. Don’t go to the front of the School!

Warning

The one thing to make you aware of is with regards to parking. There is very limited on site parking which we probably will have to reserve for event organisers. The local area has parking but it is prohibitively expensive and busy (Edinburgh is an old medieval city not designed for cars). We strongly encourage you to either stay in the area or make use of public transport to get to and from the venue. We expect to be able to lock equipment in a room over night on the Saturday, but this is done so at your own risk. As we say there are huge numbers of hotels, B&Bs and hostels in the immediate area so we hope this is not an issue for most of you.

Evening Socials

On Friday and Saturday evenings we will meet for social events at The Kilderkin, at 65 Canongate.

Friday will be an informal “meet and greet”. On Saturday we have once again booked the bar for our exclusive use and will provide a buffet, this year to feature even more onions rings. If you have any dietary requirements beyond vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free, which we have accounted for, then please let us know when you book.