Barceló Edinburgh Carlton Hotel

KandiFlip is the regular Friday night special at Edinburgh's Po Na Na. The club's own DJs play a selection of house & funky house anthems, with special guests on rotation and drinks offers to keep punters returning to the bar.

Edinburgh Farmers' Market offers organic and locally produced delights every Saturday. From Wild Boar burgers to Black Isle Ale the market has a great variety and if it's a dreich (dismal) day Stoats' whisky porridge will keep you toasty.

Edinburgh Farmers' Market Website

Rugby Union side Edinburgh Gunners welcome RaboDirect PRO12 teams to the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh for the 2011/2012 season. Matches are generally played on Friday evenings - with some weekend and Boxing Day fixtures.

Scottish Rugby Website

Rugby Union side Glasgow Warriors welcome Magners League teams to Firhill Stadium Stadium for the 2011/2012 season. Matches are generally played on Friday evenings - please visit the club's website for full details of all fixtures.

Scottish Rugby Website

Friday night is music night at the renovated Usher Hall when the Royal Scottish National Orchestra comes to play. Up to four Fridays a month you can hear orchestral and choral greats, with outgoing music director Stéphane Denève and others.

Based in Glasgow, the Royal Scottish National's antecedents date back to 1891 when the Scottish Orchestra was founded. It was led by Max Bruch, Vaclav Talich, Sir John Barbirolli, George Szell and Walter Susskind before its official reorganisation in 1950. Subsequent principal conductors have been Sir Alexander Gibson, Neeme Järvi (back this season), Bryden Thomson, Walter Weller, Alexander Lazarev and, since 2005, Denève. Peter Oundjian takes over from September 2012.

Throughout his last season Denève celebrates the 150th birth of Claude Debussy, while his closing concert includes Ravel's sensuous ballet score Daphnis et Chloé.

Royal Scottish National Orchestra Website

With 23 main evening concerts on selected Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays the Scottish Chamber Orchestra enlivens Edinburgh's musical scene, often with principal conductor Robin Ticciati at the helm. Although the delightful Queen's Hall is home, it also plays the larger Usher Hall.

Formed in 1974, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is one of Scotland's foremost cultural ambassadors, collaborating with the likes of late, lamented Sir Charles Mackerras, now-retired pianist Alfred Brendel and contemporary composers Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and James MacMillan.

Ticciati's second season opens with Berlioz and includes almost all Beethoven's symphonies and concertos as well as rarities such as Dvorák's Fifth Symhony, Brahms' First Serenade and Grieg's only Symphony. Guest conductors include John Storgards, Louis Langrée, Joseph Swenson and Oliver Knussen. St Cuthbert's Parish Church hour-long Cl@Six concerts take place on certain Tuesdays.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra Website

The National Galleries of Scotland opens a series about the Scottish Colourists with this 70-painting retrospective of FCB Cadell at the Dean Gallery. Included are paintings of Edinburgh's New Town, daring 1920's still lives, west Scotland and south of France landscapes.

Exhibiting in the 1920s and 1930s and following on Sir William McTaggart's works (himself a recent focus of a National Gallery of Scotland exhibition), the Scottish Colourists were Samuel Peploe (1871-1935), John Duncan Ferguson (1874-1961), Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937).

Melding French Impressionism and Fauvism with Scottish artistic sensibilities, the group's standing has improved markedly since their day, and is now regarded as important in the recent history of Scottish art, hence interest in the Galleries' new series of exhibitions on the quartet, starting here.

The Holiday and Travel Show at Glasgow's SECC promises to meet all your travel needs. Grab holiday bargains, discuss vacation ideas with experts and wander round the stalls exhibiting an A-Z of worldwide destinations, from the Azores to Zambia.

Barrhead Travel Website

New Territories is a festival of international contemporary Live Art across the whole of Scotland. But Glasgow hosts the largest share of experimental performances in such varied venues as The Arches, Tramway and the Centre for Contemporary Arts.

It all started with New Moves between 1988 and 1990. After a couple of transformations, New Territories started captivating Glasgow in 2002.

In 2011 Glasgow plays host to three of the four Winter School courses, including performances from global collective Black Market International. Polish Roots and world-renowned dance companies O Vertigo, Sol Pico and Didier Théron also visit, while Louise Lecavalier returns for the first time in well over a decade. Homegrown choreographers include Iona Kewney and Anna Krzystek, while the next generation of artists is celebrated in The Arches' four-day Into the New/Athena festival.

New Territories Website

The Glasgow Film Festival returns for a programme bursting with premieres, special screenings, guest speakers and workshops. Incorporating three mini-festivals, and with over 11 "strands" focusing on different genres, the Glasgow Film Festival is a major cinematic event.

Hosted at a range of venues across the city, including the Art Deco halls of the Glasgow Film Theatre, the festival focuses on 11 different "strands" of cinema. The Best of British and Great Scots highlight contemporary film-making in the UK, while there are also sections that look back at the classics of yesteryear. All the while cinema, from Japan to Europe and beyond, is celebrated through a number of different global cinema series.

There is a dedicated horror programme, Frightfest, and a documentary series, Stranger Than Fiction, not to mention the blockbuster screenings as part of Galas schedule. A programme of short films runs alongside the feature screenings and guest speakers hold court in the lobbies and theatres. Furthermore, the first week is entirely dedicated to the Glasgow Youth Film Festival project, which features movies created by, made for, and starring young people.

Glasgow Film Festival Website