Kerr County Celtic Festival & Hill Country Highland Games - August 15th (Ingram, TX)

[Fireboykirk]

Hello rabble! I'm excited to see that this has made it to to forum. This is my festival! I use the loosely because I am far from being the one to do everything, but I'll claim them.

We have had a "Highland games" demo for a couple of years in Kerrville with a pretty good turn out of athletes. It was held in conjunction with another activity and so received little press. I wanted to change that. So we have been working with Point Theatre, the Scottish Games League (SGL), and some other local groups to move it to the grounds of the Hill Country Arts Foundation and make it a separate festival.

Currently we have a full games scheduled with all of the events. We are filling slots with entertainment for the weekend and finding instructors for the pipes and drums. We have decided to use the weekend as a clinic type of event instead of competition for pipes and drums. We will have the Viking Invasion, stone masons, weavers, and various Clan tents. There will be a Cèilidh on Saturday evening at the Inn of the Hills(pot luck and probably low key), but a very strong probability of a Kilt Night at a local drinkery in Kerrville. More on that to be posted later.

We are in the infancy of this event and looking forward to support from friends and fellow kilt wearers. If you have thoughts, or a skill, or a talent you want to contribute or see please let me know. Vendor and merchant sponsor sites are available as well. Hope to see one and all. Please feel free to message me or email.

Kirk
Kscheel72@gmail.com

There is a Facebook page and a new, and slightly hard to find at the moment, website.
www.kerrcountyceltic.com

[Fireboykirk]

We frequently have kilt nights at Grape Juice in Kerrville. I posted a few in the past, but never received any interest, so I stopped. I will start again if there are those out there interested.

[Tobus]

We frequently have kilt nights at Grape Juice in Kerrville. I posted a few in the past, but never received any interest, so I stopped. I will start again if there are those out there interested.

Huh, I must have missed those completely. I know you and I had talked at some point in the past about doing a kilt night, but I didn't remember hearing of one at Grape Juice. I drive by it all the time but have never been inside.

Please tell me there will be decent beer at the festival! Helotes has actually gone downhill in this regard, and has stopped selling Belhaven. There were a lot of complaints about that. Are y'all pursuing a beer vendor that can supply brands that people would expect, like Guinness and Belhaven?

[Fireboykirk]

The Point Theatre is handling the alcohol sales and I have put a great emphasis on having Guinness and Belhaven. They are a little leery because of the possibilities of left over beer that wouldn't usually get sold after the fest. I'm hoping that I can show them the light. And maybe some numbers to encourage them.

I will start posting Kilt Nights at Grape Juice. Sometimes they are small events and other times they can be quite merry. All are welcome. If there are any musicians out there, we are looking to add some entertainment.

[Tobus]

I will start posting Kilt Nights at Grape Juice. Sometimes they are small events and other times they can be quite merry. All are welcome. If there are any musicians out there, we are looking to add some entertainment.

Sorry for the delayed response, as I have gone back and forth on whether to post this. But what the heck...

I do play the mandolin and guitar, though my primary focus is on bluegrass and old-time styles of music. Very fiddle-tune oriented, which sometimes crosses over with Celtic or "Irish traditional" music. So while I could (and do) play some Irish and Scottish traditional music, I wouldn't say I typically play it in the true authentic tradition that the genre demands. That said, I'd be willing to coordinate or collaborate with other musicians you might have in mind, if you wanted to get some informal music going at a kilt night. While I have done some limited "performance" gigs, I actually find it more enjoyable (and the music more genuine) when it's more of an organic "jam" or "session" type setting. Basically, just get musicians together and let them find what they have in common, letting the music happen all on its own. It's great fun, especially as background entertainment in venues like this.

So if you have some other musicians willing to get together like this, I'd be game. There's a group I usually jam with once a week in Kerrville, though we typically do the aforementioned bluegrass, old-time, gospel type stuff. I might could convince a couple of them to come over and jam at a kilt night (they wouldn't wear kilts, methinks), provided we weren't limited to strictly Celtic-sounding music.

[Fireboykirk]

Excellent!!!!! That would be fantastic. I'll pass that along to those I know in the area. I have also recently met Niko, who wrangles the Boerne kilt night every week at the Dodging Duck. They have a few musicians as well.