Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

[2] The first public military tattoo in Edinburgh was entitled "Something About a Soldier" and took place in 1949 at the Ross Bandstand in the Princes Street Gardens.

It drew some 6,000 spectators seated in simple bench and scaffold structures around the north, south, and east sides of the Edinburgh Castle esplanade.

[4] According to a submission by the Tattoo to the Scottish Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 2020 ticket sales indicated that 30% of the audience were from Scotland and 32% from the rest of the United Kingdom.

[6] The Tattoo performance takes place every weekday evening and twice on Saturdays throughout August and has never been cancelled due to inclement weather.

It visited Australia in 2005 and returned to the Sydney Football Stadium in February 2010 as part of the Tattoo's 60th anniversary celebrations.

As of 2021[update], Anne, Princess Royal is the patron of the event, with the main corporate sponsor being Edinburgh Airport.

The Tattoo is run for charitable causes and in 2017 it was estimated that over the years has given £10 million to the arts, military and civilian charities and organisations,[12] such as the Army Benevolent Fund.

[3] Since 2014, a house pipe band was introduced to allow individual pipers and drummers from not only Scotland but across many parts of the world to play in the Tattoo.

The 2022 programme included Banda Monumental de Mexico, the United States Army Field Band in its debut Tattoo performance, the Highland Divas, the New Zealand Army Band and the United States Air Force Honor Guard Drill team.

The sentries that mount the Castle Drawbridge guard is typically provided by the resident infantry battalion of Redford Barracks.

Several other units have also been invited to provide sentries for the Castle Drawbridge and/or form the guard of honour for the performance's finale.