Scottish Festival Peeves?

[Livingston]

The one thing that really made me give a classic double take was a couple years ago at Estes Park. It was a very rainy day and two young men were walking around with their radios stuck in their ears listening to some game. They were also wearing "great kilts" that used good old sports blankets for the material complete with claymores, sporrans and dirks. They stopped in the piping hut for a while to get out of the rain. When they left several of us looked at each other and tried to keep from laughing.

[Arlen]

I think part of the problem is that some are really Highland games and some are Highland games AND Celtic festival.

I went to a straight Highland games, very small, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last year and loved it. Everyone was happy to be there, it had the feel of games back in Scotland I'd been to/competed in and lots of Scottish Country and Highland dancing that people were actually interested in.
Tonnes of pipe bands from all over and all of them very good and very friendly. And the re-enactment group were mostly historically accurate which I LOVED.



However, here in Boise it's of the 'AND Celtic Festival' variety that I see complained about on the forum so much.


The entire thing seems to be set up like this:

Hugely obese guys who can't fit into a kilt and so have a tablecloth wrapped around them or a kilt pinned so that the two edges leave a good flash of thigh at the side competing in the games and not knowing what they are doing.

Bagpipers. More bagpipers. Even more bagpipers. All the bagpipers from different local groups scowling at each other then playing a massed pipe band they don't want to do together. Because they all HATE each other and have absurd amounts of in fighting.

Ten minutes of Highland dancing that very few people pay attention to.

Ten minutes of Scottish Country dancing that no one pays attention to.

Five hours of Irish dancing that everyone whoops and hollers about and celebrates.

Two hours of great folk music by local band/s that no one pays attention to.

Thirty minutes of 'modern' Celtic music (Swagger/The wicked tinkers/flogging molly etc etc) that everyone goes crazy about even though they do the same basic songs and show all over the country all summer and year after year.

A dodgy re-enactment group who span about 50 time periods and use made up weapons to do the same basic plot. (Bad guy tries it on with lady. Is surprised when she pulls a short sword from her skirt and defends herself. Distracts her then captures her. Is challenged by good guy and eventually beaten. They all use only Klingon weaponry and giant two-handed Claymores.)

A dodgy closing ceremony.




Now, don't get me wrong, it's fun and the organisers do it because it's what brings the money in for it to happen at all. But it's not like home at all and, while I'm getting better about it, sometimes I just find it kind of insulting to my country and heritage to see people use 'Scottishness' as an excuse to wear absurd outfits, get drunk and say it's almost as good as St. Patrick's day.
I can forgive the outfit malfunctions and the badly made tablecloth kilts and even the Sport Kilts worn over shorts and athletic socks. But the idea that all Scotland really amounts to is booze, fat athletics, Celtic Rock and Irish dancing is kinda insulting.

[Zardoz]

Trying to stay close to topic here, but does anyone know of a highland event in the US that's fairly traditional/conservative? More of a Scottish feel than a Renn-Faire with kilts?

Sure, it's next door to the rennaissance faire where all the patrons are in historically correct attire!

I'm sure that the organizers of any given Highland games would love it if the majority of their patrons were all dressed like proper Highland lairds and ladies, just like I'm sure most preachers wish their congregants wore suits and dresses on Sunday. But in reality they'll be lucky if the average citizen can match their crocs to their tube top.

[Chas]

In my opinion the worst sort are the ones who turn up really looking the part with their tweed jacket, smart kilt, hose and ghillie brogues, bonnet with armiger's feather,
BUT
then they spoil the good impression by getting drunk at the beer tent and starting to abuse people who have chosen to wear a casual kilt or a solid colour kilt.

Alex has hit the nail on the head.

People might not know, they might not be aware - fashion is after all not an exact science. There is no absolute right and wrong - had history evolved differently, then right might be wrong and wrong might be right. People try to belong, but life and constraints get in the way.

There is on the other hand no excuse for getting drunk. Nobody wants to be splashed by a projectile vomiter, or accidentally walk through it and carry the smell around all day.

To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling "fashion is only a fashion, but a drunk is still a drunk".

Regards

Chas

[BoldHighlander]

Trying to stay close to topic here, but does anyone know of a highland event in the US that's fairly traditional/conservative? More of a Scottish feel than a Renn-Faire with kilts?

Yep, our local games that happen the first weekend of June each year.

My only real pet peeve is vendors row, more non-Scottish/Celtic crap being sold then anything. As my wife said this year: "what's hawking rain gutters & new windows got to do with Scottish games?"

[Riverkilt]

[Hothir Ethelnor]

Man, that's a nice kilt in a semi-rare tartan too he should know better...

[Squeaky McMurdo]

Trying to stay close to topic here, but does anyone know of a highland event in the US that's fairly traditional/conservative? More of a Scottish feel than a Renn-Faire with kilts?

I've been to two games like that. The Yellowstone Highland Games in Billings, MT where everyone was either wearing a kilt or street clothes (or their dance costume) except for a guy selling chain mail

And the Jackson Hole, WY Games. That was the best games I've ever been to because Arlen and unaspencer made us dance with them. lol

--Chelsea McMurdo--

[Sir William]

Give him some credit - this way the pleats don't get mussed up!

[Squeaky McMurdo]

Maybe he's going to send it back? lol

Pretty tartan though