Norwegian Military Tattoo

Held every other year since 1994, the show welcomes 850 participants from around the world. The 2018 show will be hosted on 20-22 April in Oslo Spektrum. Traditionally, a ‘tattoo’ was an old military tradition, derived from the Dutch expression ‘doe den tap toe’, which means to turn off the taps. This was the way drummers and trumpeters instructed to stop serving beer and for soldiers to return to their barracks, and it can be traced back exactly 400 years to 1618, making this year the 400th anniversary for the expression. In 1950, the term ‘tattoo’ was brought back in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, where they decided to host a Military Tattoo tied to the Edinburgh Castle.