Merchant City Trad Trail Tour at Celtic Connections 2024

In between raiding the mince pies and making inroads on the whisky, Glasgow Music City Tours spent much of the festive period polishing our stories for our Merchant City Trad Trail Walking Tour for Celtic Connections 2024. The tours are selling out quickly so if you’d like to get your hands on tickets before they do, book here. Please note due to licensing restrictions this tour is for over 18s only.

What Can Guests Look Forward To?

From Burns to the bards of the shipyards, unusual rider requests, skirls and skirmishes, the two-hour tour traces the story of Glasgow’s folk and roots scene including legendary sessions in longstanding bars to today’s Celtic Connections headliners. Walking some of Glasgow’s oldest streets, our expert guides share tales of the songwriters and storytellers who have shaped the city’s vibrant folk culture. Our lead guide is Fiona Shepherd, a founder of Glasgow Music City Tours and rock and pop music critic for The Scotsman newspaper…watch out…she’ll get you singing…

Welcome Dram from Tomatin

No-one expects to top up their tan in January in Glasgow so the tours have been designed to take in plenty of indoor stops.

Before we venture outside, we begin with an introduction and a winter warmer at the Scottish Music Centre on Candelriggs. A resource for both the public and professional musicians, the SMC is a treasure trove and home to a huge archive of Scottish music material. The brilliant team there have collated some Scottish music artefacts relating to Celtic Connections, and we’ll tell the tales behind them, along with a welcome dram from our sponsors, Tomatin, before setting out on tour.

Each Trad Trail tour will finish in a cosy bar where your guide will bring an end to the stories and guests can buy a cup of coffee. Or something stronger.

So wrap up warm and join us, we’d love to see you.

Buy tickets here: Merchant City Trad Trail Walking Tour