The Proclaimers, The Waterboys, and Kassidy are to headline the award winning Hebridean Celtic Festival this year. The Proclaimers will be launching their new album ‘Like Comedy’ in May this year in advance of playing their new tunes for the HebCelt audience, whilst The Waterboys will be coming to Scotland on the back of an extensive European tour. Renowned Scottish folk rock artistes, Kassidy, will also heighten the quality of the festival’s programme.

The 17th HebCelt (11-14 July) continues to set high standards for music, and as a key attraction. It pulls in visitors from around the world and already early bird tickets have been snapped up by people from across Europe, USA and Canada.

The early programme announcement reflects the ever-increasing demands the festival faces for news. It also comes at a time when the HebCelt is making a fundamental change to its already successful format. 

Festival Director, Caroline MacLennan, said: “We are delighted to reveal The Proclaimers and The Waterboys will be returning by popular demand. Both have been massive crowd-pleasers in the past and we look forward to seeing them again. We also have a lot of new acts appearing and are very pleased to be welcoming Kassidy to the event. We have concentrated on providing a wide range of choice for our festival-goers with exciting acts and a great deal more music than in past years.

“As well as a repeat of last year’s successful second stage in the grounds of Lews Castle, we are extending the festival experience by nearly doubling the number of acts on the Friday and Saturday with festivities kicking off from 2pm on those days. With this new format and the excellent range of artists we have coming to play, we are greatly looking forward to staging a fantastic HebCelt in 2012.

“We have a number of tremendous acts, hailing from Scotland, Ireland, the USA and Canada. They include Roddy Woomble from Idlewild, Skerryvore, our very own Manran, Washington Irving, Iain Copeland’s new project – Sketch featuring Maeve Mackinnon, the award winning Canadian duo Qristina & Quinn Bachand, and Irish representation from Beoga and also The Long Notes. We will have more to announce soon and would urge everyone to keep an eye on the website for further details.”

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland said: “In the Year of Creative Scotland, HebCelt's programme is a real highlight in the calendar. This festival goes from strength to strength.”

Weekend tickets are available. Day tickets for all venues will be on sale in March when the programme is completed.