Scottish Festival Peeves?

[slohairt]

I picked the 'unaltered sports jacket' option and am surprised (and perhaps alarmed) that more people didn't pick that. I see it done quite often, and depending on the height of the person and length of jacket, it gives the impression of a small boy wearing his dad's coat! Not a good look. You don't have to rush out a buy a kilt jacket (although you could ), but a little alteration would make the whole thing a bit more presentable. People need to realise that kilt jackets are shorter and cut-away for practical reasons, not fashion.

I do agree that there are far too many Jack Sparrows. What about Captain Morgan? Now there was a pirate...

[Sir William]

I get a bit irritated seeing kilts worn improperly (too long, too high, pleats to the front, etc), and slighly irritated seeing a mix of daywear and dress (though I usually assume the wearer only has what he is wearing and nothing else). I smirk at the occasional pirate who seems out of place at a Scottish Games, or the Mel Gibson wanna-be who doesn't know how to wear a great kilt, or the Victorian wanna-be that is decked out in all the regalia that "might" be more appropriate for Burns Night than a Games,

BUT, my biggest pet peeve.....

is to go to the Pub Tent and not find any decent ales! I don't much care for lagers (and lite-beer isn't real beer), and I'm never sure why a German or Belgium style wheat beer is served at a Scottish function, but why can't we get a decent Scottish, British, or even an Irish ALE?

[Tony]

Have you SEEN pix of Oktoberfest? There are pictsies,

Did you say Pictsies?

[Chukta]

I grow weary of the renfaire types turning the Games into a costume party. They have their own "faires". Why do they think a Scottish gathering is a place to dress up in costumes, instead of traditional Scottish wear? When did jousting and sword fighting become a part of the Scottish (and or Celtic) gatherings?
But the thing that turned me off of the Bakersfield CA Games completely, is the appearance of the White Power, White Supremacist types who have decided to make the annual Scottish Gathering their annual Summer meeting place, removing their shirts and displaying their White Power neo-Nazi tatoos. There's a time and place for everything and everyone, I suppose, but leave our Gatherings as they used to be.

[artificer]

Did you say Pictsies?

That I did! Terry Pratchett's Feegles are wonderfully belligerent, and quite hysterically funny. With more pictsies around, there'd be fewer pixies.

[Lallans]

Thought: the ren people complained of are depicting my fellow Scottish lowlanders of the period? And the pirates are... ummmmm.... must.... not.... make.... joke....

Where I attend it's rare for anyone but pipers to wear anything but street clothes, so I'd be glad to see anyone making some other sort of effort. But I do hate to see guys in mod kilts that are way way down below the knees, I guess that's my peeve.

[Rex_Tremende]

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?"

Mmmm, nachos!

[Rex_Tremende]

Long lines at the beer tent are a pisser though.

These just lead to long lines elsewhere, and they're the real pissers.

[AFS1970]

First of all I am old enough that it is a wannabe Christopher Lambert / Connor McLeod and not a wannabe Mel Gibson /Wallace...lol.

I picked other in the poll, because the one I really wanted to pick was Pirates, but I have found them more of an infestation at Ren Faires than I have at Scottish Festivals. They are every bit as out of place there as they are other places, except of course Pirate Festivals.

As for puffy shirts (please no Sienfeld references) I have to admit to owning two, one was bought for non highland uses and is black and in a modern fabric. The other came from a vendor at a Highland Games, but was being sold as a colonial (late 1700's) era shirt and has buttons on the cuffs. That is in a nice rough linen. I have it mostly for ren faires and rarely wear it with my kilt.

If pixies showed up at Oktoberfest they would quickly be crushed by a bunch of drunk Germans who would likely sing a song about it later. I might even join them in singing it, if I were there. I don't like faeries and pixies much.

I will say I have possibly contributed to the misinterpretation of culture, in that I have worn my Scottish Kilt to Irish themed events. However it is noticed more at those then when I wear it for other reasons. I went out on Tartan Day and got no remarks or questions. I was in DC for ShamrockFest and the parade the next day and had more inquiries that I welcomed. I also will say that that festival featured no food that I could identify with any celtic nation but had American BBQ & Mexican food in large numbers.

The next day at the parade, there was a Mexican dance troupe and a Chinese dragon, along with rennies and my personal favorite: an anime club from a nearby publioc library, which ammounted to several overweight teens/twenties in street clothes with backpacks and really strange looking plastic swords over their shoulders.

As for the beer, it all boils down to price per keg. I helped out at a festival where the keg price was about 63 cents per cup, and the recommended retail was 6 dollars per cup. We only charged 3 dollars a cup and the distributor thought we were crazy for it. However that was for yellow American pee water called beer. I believe that anything with color or flavor or from an actual beer producing nation would have cost much more.

[Tobus]

BUT, my biggest pet peeve.....

is to go to the Pub Tent and not find any decent ales! I don't much care for lagers (and lite-beer isn't real beer), and I'm never sure why a German or Belgium style wheat beer is served at a Scottish function, but why can't we get a decent Scottish, British, or even an Irish ALE?

Our local (San Antonio) Scottish Games, which is small by comparison to many of the ones you folks may attend, usually has Belhaven Scottish Ale and Guinness. Granted, they're in cans, but it's better than drinking a lite beer or lager!