Eden Court hosted the National Festival of Youth Theatre (NFYT) in July, welcoming hundreds of young people to Inverness from across Scotland to participate in workshops, shows and more. NFYT Young Host Isla details their experience of the weekend...

The National Festival of Youth Theatre is the only camping theatre project that takes place in Scotland. It takes place every two years and this year I attended as a Young Host to welcome young people coming from across Scotland to the Highlands and Inverness. Alongside five other hosts we planned and curated the social events for the festival.

Thu 2 Jul

Thursday was 'day zero' for me – I arrived and met the team and other young leaders. My first task was setting up my tent in preparation for the weekend. Luckily, it was a sunny morning so the tent went up with ease! Then we set up the Under Canvas tent as a chill space for the weekend and put up signage to help young people navigate the building. After a quick pizza break we made up a map of every youth theatre group from all across Scotland and that was the end of our prep day before all the young people arrived!

Fri 3 Jul

The first day of the festival was chaotic and amazing. We welcomed young people and helped them set up. We set out groups on a scavenger hunt around Inverness. After this, our first shows were The Outsider by Bute Youth Theatre and Enter Chaos by Eden Court Young Company – two contrasting and incredibly impressive performances. To end the day we had our first social event: the talent show! It went down a treat and it was joyous to see how supportive everyone was of each other.

Photos by Andy Catlin

Sat 4 Jul

First night at the campsite and a seagull was my alarm for the morning! STV came to interview us about the festival and I was asked to answer questions. It was a great experience and I was able to jump into a workshop after. In the evening we had our most ambitious social event of the weekend: the Murder Mystery. I witnessed bribes and debates over answers as young people got stuck in all across the building figuring out our murderer.

Sun 5 Jul

The last day of the festival went by so fast. We saw the scratch film that was created over the course of the weekend. It was done incredibly well and so impressive to see how it was made in such a short timeframe. We then went on to our final social event: the wrap party. It was DJ'd by a local young person and it was a great night. There was dancing and glitter and a young person dressed as a banana.

I was proud to be part of this year's NFYT as a young host and I was very proud to represent Eden Court to all the people who came to the festival. I hope more young people from Inverness and the Highlands can be involved in this project again. This wouldn’t have been achievable without the help of the Eden Court Engagement and Youth Theatre Arts Scotland teams. And thank you to the other young hosts who I worked with and made all the events possible.

This blog was written by NFYT Young Host Isla MacLean.