Help secure the Pianodrome's future

The Pianodrome is the world's first amphitheatre made entirely from pianos, and it lives for live performance. In order to thrive we need to be able to bring people together to enjoy this architectural marvel. Most of our income is from ticket revenue during the Fringe - with restrictions keeping us from organising live events we need your help to weather the storm.

Please help us raise funds to find a year-round space for the Pianodrome in Edinburgh, so that as soon as it is safe to do so we can get back to supporting our creative community, putting on phenomenal live experiences and preparing to make a comeback to the Fringe next year. 

Help us find a home in Edinburgh

The Pianodrome is currently stored in a warehouse outside the city centre which is unsuitable for live audiences. We want to find a more permanent home where we can invite you in to our gigantic walnut mahogany musical hug year-round.

As you can imagine moving the Pianodrome is a big job! Although we love animating new spaces it’s a huge effort to install it in a new venue each year. A permanent home we enable us to establish our standing in Edinburgh's cultural landscape and give us a base to make a comeback to Fringe 2021. We'll also be able to collaborate more with our favourite local promoters and organisations to bring genuinely fulfilling cultural experiences to Edinburgh throughout the year.

You can find out more about the project here: www.pianodrome.org

Intimate and epic

The Pianodrome was co-founded by Sink band-mates Tim Vincent-Smith and Matt Wright. It was built during an intense 2-month period by a passionate community of  artists, makers and musicians. Film-makers Melt the Fly created a beautiful 14-minute documentary about the project, attracting awards from film festivals around the world. You can watch the film here - highly recommended!

Built in Summer 2018, we premiered at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, opening for the month-long Edinburgh Fringe festival. Thousands of people took their hands to one of our five playable pianos, with hundreds of spontaneous jams, seasoned pianists performing spontaneous recitals and beginners young and old taking to the keys for the first time. 

A moveable fest

Since our first installation in the Royal Botanic Gardens the Pianodrome has become Edinburgh's most talked about new venue. Following the success of our first year we've graced a warehouse on Pitt Street and run a month-long residency at the Leith Theatre. Made entirely from over 50 up-cycled pianos the space is an immersive experience in itself which has welcomed over 20,000 visitors so far.

We have hosted over 250 acts - from high-end chamber music to live techno, Scotlands top jazz musicians, folk music from across the lands, prog rock, home grown community brass bands and Georgian choirs. We've programmed in-the-round theatre, interactive dance performance and live film scores as well as giant choir jams and music workshops.

Last year's Fringe was a big one for us - we won the 2019 Creative Carbon Scotland Sustainable fringe award for best venue and the 2019 Three Weeks Editors' Award. We want to build on this success by establishing a new, community-led venue in the city.

No piano is junk, no person is unmusical

We want to be of service to Edinburgh's creative community, by opening a fully accessible space where anything can happen - music, dance, theatre, discussions, performance art, workshops, citizens' assembly, experimentation - and where the intense cultural excitement of the Fringe can be harnessed to bring a vibrancy to the city outside the month of August.

A permanent home will mean the Pianodrome can open year-round, helping us to create a community venue which can host diverse events and activities, and help support new ideas. Spaces like this are vital to our society, providing invaluable chances for people from different backgrounds to meet, to cooperate and to experiment. These are essential tools to forge much needed connections and generate hope in these dark and unpredictable times. 

A venue in town will also mean we’ll be ready to host events when the Fringe Festival makes a comeback in August 2021. With your help we can raise the funds we need to secure a lease for a long term site in the city.

The Ultimate Up-cycling project

Every year hundreds of pianos are discarded by their owners in Scotland alone – our adoption scheme works to re-home those pianos which are still playable, but many have simply reached the end of their life as musical instruments. We love re-purposing these cherished family instruments, giving them a chance to live on as part of our sculptural works.

The Pianodrome amphitheatre in Edinburgh was the first, but we’ve since worked with Glasgow Piano City to build a permanent auditorium in Springburn Park in Glasgow. This project recently featured in the Guardian newspaper.

With a permanent space we can continue to develop this side of our business, re-purposing hundreds more pianos which would otherwise go to the dump for new projects across the UK and beyond.

Adaptable and resilient

The in-the-round tiered seating of the Pianodrome envelopes a circular stage, creating the ideal conditions for immersive, meaningful performances. The wood and metal of the pianos bring a warm resonance to the amphitheatre, making it perfect for listening to acoustic music. Our five-speaker ‘penta-phonic’ sound system provides subtle amplification for louder music. 

The tiered bench-like seating of the Pianodrome means we can adapt easily to social distancing measures, by spacing households out amongst the structure. We want to be ready to host audiences as soon as it is safe to do so. 

The Pianodrome is a small organisation run by a few passionate individuals. We don't have huge reserves available to us but we have big ideas! 

People who come through our doors and experience what we do are invariably blown away. With your help we can share these invaluable experiences with many more, keeping these connections alive and growing our creative community.

We understand that these times are hard for many, and we aren't the only organisation asking for your help. If you can donate the price of a ticket, or even a drink in the piano bar, then please do! If you aren't able, no worries, but a share or a forward would be warmly received and we hope to see you soon for some much needed live entertainment.