Each year one of the highlights of the Kirkcudbright Jazz Festival is the Brolly Parade, which takes place on the Saturday morning of the Festival and parades through Kirkcudbright, drawing crowds of onlookers to enjoy the spectacle.

The parade starts at 11am from Atkinson place and makes its way through the town, stopping at the Moat Brae to enjoy some music and then finishes at the Soaperie Gardens in the centre of the town, where there is a prize giving for the best decorated brollies. All those that take part receive a medal and there is a goody bag for each child that joins in the parade. Anyone can take part in the parade, simply decorate a brolly and come to Atkinson place for 10.45am.

Brolly Parade History

While many organizations in New Orleans used brass bands in parades, concerts, political rallies, and funerals, African-American mutual aid and benevolent societies had their own expressive approach to funeral processions and parades, which continues to the present.

Traditionally, the jazz funeral parade has two sections, the “main line” or “first line,” consisting of the grand marshals, traditional jazz band, pallbearers and honorary pallbearers, and the “second line,” comprised of all the well-wishers and the various people from the neighborhood who join in the parade. On leaving the cemetery  the music would become joyful and the relatives, friends and acquaintances in the second line would dance  with wild abandon, usually sporting parasols or umbrellas and handkerchiefs.

This practice of parading behind a grand marshall and jazz band has become almost a tradition at jazz festivals around the world, with the “second line” participants dressing evermore extravagantly and sporting evermore elaborately decorated brollies.