The Royal Edinburgh Military Orchestra Parade ( English Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo ) is a music and theater festival held in the first three weeks of August every year since 1950 in Edinburgh , Scotland .
Military bands from around the world, drummers , bagpipers , singers, processions of acrobats and cheerleaders , in total more than a thousand participants, take part in the performances. Foreign performers first appeared on the parade in 1952; they were the “Royal Grenadiers of the Netherlands ”. Each year, about 200 thousand people come to Edinburgh Castle , and the parade television audience is 100 million people.
This event, which attracts members of the royal family, the patron saint of the festival is Princess Anna . Tickets are usually sold out a few months before the festival.
The festival is non-profit, the profit from the sale of tickets and TV broadcasts is made available to charitable organizations.
In 2010, for the 60th anniversary of the festival, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the title of Royal.
Etymology
The word “tattoo” used in the original name of the festival is not related to the tattoo . It comes from the Dutch expression “Doe den tap toe”, which can be translated into Russian as a command “Close the tap!”. So in the XVII — XVIII centuries in the Dutch army was given the command to the end. In the form modified to the “tattoo”, the word migrated to the British army, it indicates the end time, since the command was usually given to mining, then over time this word acquired a second meaning - the performance of military music.
According to the second version, “Military Tattoo” means the military signal of the “evening dawn” - drumming, which encourages soldiers to return to the barracks (literal translation of the word “tattoo” from English: drumming; knock).
The Edinburgh Art Festival also hosts the Starbucks Jazz & Blues Festival, the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Edinburgh Film Festival. But the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the highlight of this holiday.