Lorde to headline Edinburgh Summer Sessions 2026 with Zara Larsson in support

The Pure Heroine returns to Scotland next August for a major outdoor show, backed by a formidable pop line-up

Edinburgh Summer Sessions has secured a heavyweight for 2026, with Lorde set to top the bill at the Royal Highland Showgrounds on 25 August.

Lorde’s rise already feels the stuff of pop folklore. Since Pure Heroine landed in 2013, she’s carved a singular path through the genre, bending melody and minimalism into something sharp enough to cut through the mainstream. Her voice – quiet, conspiratorial, and utterly unshakeable – became a marker of a new kind of pop stardom: inward-facing yet universal. Now sitting on over 18 billion streams and 18 million album sales, she’s long been canonised as one of her generation’s defining artists, but her 2025 return proved she still has the power to reroute the culture.

‘What Was That’, her first new release in four years, detonated upon arrival, immediately hitting No.1 on US Spotify and giving her the kind of comeback moment most artists never get once, let alone twice. The follow-up album, Virgin, hardened that impact, debuting at No.1 in the UK and No.2 on the Billboard 200 while earning some of her strongest reviews to date.

For the Edinburgh date, she’s flanked by Swedish hitmaker Zara Larsson, whose arsenal of R&B-leaning club-pop has dominated charts since the mid-2010s. Tracks like ‘Lush Life’ and ‘Never Forget You’ transformed her into a global force, and her live shows remain a reliable jolt of precision-tooled pop maximalism.

Also joining the bill is rising US artist Audrey Hobert. At 26, she’s already gathering serious momentum following her 2025 debut album Who’s the Clown? – a record that announced a writer with bite. ‘Sue Me’, her breakout single, has become a calling card for her blend of sardonic lyrics and slanted alt-pop production.

Lorde’s addition cements Edinburgh Summer Sessions 2026 as one of next year’s most stacked line-ups, with more names still to come.