May 22, 2025
Following our preview of Wednesday’s opening party, we now take a look at the Thursday offering, as The Paper Factory lights up with the raw energy of SPRINTS, dubbed by Stereogum as “one of the most exciting young rock bands in the world.”
Here’s how your Thursday evening might look – although your exact path through the factory is entirely up to you..
We open from 1pm on Thursday 12 June, so get here early to explore the site and soak up all of the stunning visual art and giant murals scattered throughout the site. Check our venue page for tips on how to get here via the many public transport options.
Arriving on site, you’re welcomed at the office reception, repurposed as our Box Office. Explore the winding corridors of offices and meeting rooms, transformed into a labyrinth of sound and art. Then emerge onto The Factory Floor, a huge industrial space filled with lights, wandering performances and large scale visual art installations. Grab a drink at the bar and get ready for 7 hours of fun…
At 6pm here on The Factory Floor, witness the first of our special Creative Collaborations. “Ghost in the Machine” is a site-responsive performance developed by Jill Martin Boualaxai, blending physical theatre, dance, live drumming, visual art, and costume. The piece evolves over time into performance drawings and sculptural traces that blur the boundaries between ritual, history, and the factory’s own mythology.
At 6:30pm, you might head to the Jack Daniels Stage for Edinburgh duo Accident Machine. A blend of live percussion, dubbed out vocals and acid house sensibilities, expect a bass heavy workout from old house legend George T and in-demand DJ and percussionist Mairi B Pots.
You might also wander through to the Crane Shed for the first dance performance of the night. Yuxi Jiang‘s “The Circle Unbound” is an immersive dance theatre performance that transforms industrial repetition into sacred ritual. Blending Tibetan ritual vocabularies with contemporary dance, the piece invites audiences into a mesmerizing space where industry and tradition collide. Created in collaboration with London-based sound artist Yilei Li and Glasgow-based moving image artist Siyao Li, this is a hypnotic, multisensory journey where rhythm becomes revelation.
At 7pm there’s another chance to catch Ghost in the Machine on the Factory Floor, or head to the Machine Room as Edinburgh’s Isabella Strange bring hardcore, punk and no wave influences to create their brand of punk; hypnotic and rugged. Kira Wolfe Murray’s vocals are both playful and sincere, touching on themes of modern intimacy and anxiety.
At 7.40pm, go in search of the Locker Room for our next Creative Collaboration. Eszter Marsalko presents “We have all been here – now into the light”, a multi-disciplinary installation combining video and audio work with short live encounters. At the core is a mock historical-biographical installation for the factory itself, a narrative-led, sensory experience on its own, with short visual and physical snippets conjuring memories of what may have happened here, or events yet to unfold.
At 7.45pm you have another chance to witness Yuxi Jiang’s “The Circle Unbound” in the Crane Shed.
Otherwise, head to the music stage for Glasgow’s SISTER MADDS. Armed with catchy hooks and tongue-in-cheek lyricism, these bratty-rockers are shaping a new generation of relatable songs about love and other Gen Z woes. Pairing punk-esque tendencies with intricate jangly guitars they weave genre-bending nuances into their performances.
At 8pm in the Long Room, Charles Lang will read from his new poetry collection, The Oasis. Written in Glaswegian dialect, the poems examine the intersections between class and the climate crisis through engagements with urban and rural environments.
There’s perhaps time for some hot street food and a fresh drink before you’re due at the Machine Room for Tina Sandwich – a circus of thunder and theatrics, fusing classic rock with all the romp and pomp of synthesised pop. From her rip-roaring debut on the main stage of Scotland’s Belladrum festival, to selling out Glasgow’s legendary King Tuts, Tina Sandwich and her band kick up a fuss wherever they go.
You’ve also got one last chance to see “Ghost in the Machine” on the Factory Floor at 8:40pm.
Get yourself back to the Jack Daniels stage for 9:15pm to witness Manchester quartet Witch Fever concocting a potent sonic assault, a racket of confrontation, that takes no prisoners. Refusing to be confined by gender or genre, Witch Fever have always defied expectations – their debut album Congregation is the sound of punk without any kind of boundaries, and with it they are ushering in a new era of heavy music.
If you’re seeking something more ethereal, you might instead head to The Crane Shed for “SPECTRAL”, a mesmerising and visually stunning Creative Collaboration. Become immersed in a fusion of light and lasers as this exhilarating performance transitions between floor-based choreography and aerial movement. The live soundtrack embraces the cavernous reverb of the space, layering field recordings with intricate synths and polyrhythms.
At 9.30pm there’s more spoken word in the Long Room with Hugh McMillan presenting a modern working of the classic Welsh poem the Gododdin. In the original, Celtic warriors venture forth to fight against the Saxons. In Hugh’s version, various personalities, passengers on the train, represent facets of post industrial Scotland on their way south to an uncertain and cathartic future.
At 10pm we welcome “one of the most exciting young rock bands in the world”, Dublin 4-piece SPRINTS. Fronted by the charismatic Karla Chubb, expect a thrilling show; exhilarating and life-affirming. Their music is honest and raw, the universal themes relatable and all enveloped within the most intoxicating soundscape.
Alternatively, the Factory Floor hosts the final Creative Collaboration of the evening. “Production Line of Dreams”. In this newly commissioned performance, psychedelic beat-poetry ensemble Acolyte bring together a collective of disparate art forms to recreate a production line, reflecting this year’s festival themes of ritual and new narratives. Inspired by The Paper Factory’s abandoned machinery, Production Line of Dreams uses loops, field recordings and movement to explore machine learning, imagination production and AI.
As the live performances draw to a close, recharge your drinks and spend some time exploring the parts of the Factory that you missed earlier. With the work of over 30 visual artists installed throughout the complex, there’s probably more than you could discover in just one visit, so start planning your return trip – we’re open until Sunday 15 June!
See the full timings for all performances each day.
Note: timings are subject to change, please double-check on the night as sometimes we need to shift things around a bit to fit everything in!
