Blackford & Blair Atholl Highland Games 2012

[tulloch]

Well that sounds like a fantastic first weekend. Congratulations. Wonderful to read and wonderful to know there were friendlies there urging you on. You go girl!!

[Kinetikat]

OK, I have a couple of photos. My youngest daughter was there with me, clutching the family camera, and inexpilcably we have ended up with dozens and dozens of shots of guys tossing the sheaf (I didn't even compete in sheaf!), a billion shots of the Atholl Highlanders (well, they were spectacular), pics of a cute dog that caught her eye, and about a thousand of the surrounding extremely scenic scenery. Pics of me? So far, just a handful unless you count sneak shots of my armpit taken from the next chair. *Sigh.*
So, with the pics from Blackford currently AWOL, here are a selection from Blair Atholl:

Scotland's most picturesque car park.


Ditto Games field.


HRNK! A lone piper plays the songs of his homeland against the backdrop of Blair Castle.


The very snappily-dressed Atholl Highlanders pipe band.


Their vastly impressive Drum Major, leading the way.


The Highlanders fired their cannon to mark the official start of the Games, causing girly flinching and cries of 'Jesus!' in those of the Heavies who hadn't been paying attention!


And here's me, on my way to throw the 16lb hammer!

More to follow...

[Kinetikat]

OK, I think I have these in the right order...

It's a good thing I didn't notice the gorgeous Ben Fogle and his NBC News camera crew filming at this point, it really would have put me off! As it was, the damn hammer was enough to discombobulate me - no so much the weight (it was only 2lb heavier than my practice hammer), but the handle length and especially the inflexibility of the handle... man. I SUCKED at a throw I usually really enjoy. *sigh* Never mind! I've figured out what I was doing particularly wrong, and now I can fix it for next time, which is the point, right guys?

The daughter was sitting on a steep grassy bank above the arena when she took these, hence the crane-like point of view!


Preparing for my first try.


This was the point at which I hurt my wrist on the butt of the hammer handle and realised I was deep in the doo-doo. Ack, the bent arms! *blush*


I think I was looking for a hole to crawl into at this point. Second go.


Ready to wind.


The one hammer pic I'm remotely pleased with!


And finally, here's me joking with one of the field officials who bore an uncanny resemblance to Tommy Lee Jones and was incredibly nice to me all day. Actually all the officials were super nice to me at both Games, they were willing to talk to me, they had a sense of humour - they were a saving grace, the lot of 'em.

Big Northumbrian Wave for the Games officials! Thanks, lads!

[Jock Scot]

Great pictures.

So alright then, the first two pictures (Kinetikat's post 12) set the scene spectacularly well and give a pretty good idea of the size of one of the grandest Games in Scotland ------I know not how it rates as far as size goes for a Scottish Highland Games, but perhaps larger than average? So, you chaps outwith the UK give me idea of how this relates in size-----, area, crowds, numbers, facilities-------- at a Games in your part of the world?

[cessna152towser]

Great pics, some good action shots there. I am thinking it must have been very warm wearing black leggings with a kilt despite the "Stay Cool" tee-shirt.
From my own perspective, in reply to Jock Scot, I would say these games look much smaller and more intimate than the games which I have attended in North America, Ventura CA, Loon Mountain NH and Victoria BC.
By Scottish standards they are quite large. If we had been able to attract so many vendors tents to our games here in the south of Scotland their pitch fees would have gone a long way to sustaining the viability of games which sadly can no longer afford to take place. I've never attended the Atholl Games but I have been to many smaller games and also to a few which had lots more tents. There are more tents at games such as Bridge of Allan and North Berwick, both of which occur around the time of the Edinburgh Festival and the World Pipe Band Championships and which therefore attract significant numbers of the diaspora visiting from North America. Both of which are good games and well worth attending. Aboyne is the only game on Royal Deeside which I have attended and I was very impressed by its extensive activities and I am told that it is not the largest games in the North-East. By contrast, a couple of other so-called Highland Games in the central belt spring to mind which have huge numbers of vendor tents selling items totally irrelevant to Scottish traditions yet despite being billed as Highland Games have little in the way of pipers, highland dancing and heavy athletics.
Like Jock I'd be interested to hear the North American perspective on this.

[tulloch]

Great photos! Thanks. The Atholl Highlanders will be here in Massachusetts at Athol, Massachusetts this coming weekend. Nice to see them at work. Congratulations to your daughter. Post more!

[creagdhubh]

Wonderful photos and what wonderful weather at Blair! Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,

[Alan H]

YEAH< Sue!!!!!!! YOU DID IT!

and what a gorgeous setting!! wow. Throwing at a castle. Sheesh, we don't have castles over here. We throw on the grass next to the hot dog stand! I didn't know that you threw the sheaf over there. I thought that was mostly a US invention.

Jock, I'm the athletic director for a very small one-day Games here in California. This year we had 17 athletes on the field. Last year we had 24. These are all amateurs who don't earn any money for throwing, but they do get into the event for free. The athletics is only one part of the event. We had two pipe bands, about 20 pipers in solo piping competition, one Highland dance school (one teacher and about 10 students) , one group doing Scottish Country Dancing (Panache is part of this group-about 18 in all) and five historical re-enactor groups which numbered about 100 people, in all. There were two "entertainment" bands, and two solo music acts that rotated on the two stages. The shinty team was out (cammanch'd) and that was 8 people. They played a round on the field during lunch.

So grand total of participants is probably something like 400. The number of people who paid for entry was about 2,100. That's a big increase from the past two years.

Clan tents, we had about a dozen. Vendors...about 4 food vendors and 8-10 tents selling various things. We really need to double the number of vendors tents and add another 1-2 food vendors. I'd like to increase the number of athletes to about 30 and then that's about as much as the facility will support. Again this is a VERY small event, compared to most here in California. Our total budget, this is the grand total for everything...two years ago was $1,500. This year it was about $5,000. I think that we'll have about $8,000 for next year. We don't give out cash prizes for the winners of the various competitions. The money goes towards paying the entertainment bands (this is expensive), paying a bit to the pipe bands, paying for a hotel for the piping judges, publicity (1/3rd of the budget goes to publicity) , some athletic equipment and crowd control equipment, and material for the Childrens play tent.

The layout of the events is totally different. I notice that many Scottish Games have the spectators mostly in a big circle, or oval around a central area. The Games here in the USA are much more spread out.

In comparison, the Woodland Highland Games, which is the third-biggest event in California, will draw about 15,000-17,000 people over two days. There will be 100+ athletes on the field, spread out over two days. There will be 8-10 professional, paid athletes, the rest are amateurs. There are about 50 clan tents, 75-100 vendor booths, a dozen pipe bands (400+ pipers and drummers), sheepherding demonstrations, 200 Highland dancers from various schools, 2-3 Scottish Country Dance groups, 300+ people in the historical re-enactment camp and 15 food vendors of various types.

Costa Mesa and Pleasanton are bigger than that.

Most of the Highland Games in California are somewhere in-between the size of my event, and Woodland. Within an 8 hour drive of my home, I can attend the following Games. If marked with a * that means it's a LONG drive, or I would catch a commuter airplane flight to attend these. If marked with a $ that means it's an easy <3 hour drive to attend.

Ardenwood (my local event, 25 minute drive from my house, 2,000 people, one day) April - $
Sonora (medium sized event, one day, 4,000 people) - April - $
Woodland (very large event, two days) - April - $
Pomona Irish Fest (I've never actually been to this) - April - *
Bakersfield ..( attended this year, 4,000 people) - May -*
Costa Mesa .. (went last year, 20,000 people attend-two day event) - May - *
Santa Cruz Ren Faire (very close to home, 6,000 people attend-two day event) - June - $
Monterey Highland Games (2.5 hour drive, 5,000 attend over two days) - July - $
Pleasanton Highland Games (HUGE! 30,000 people over two days) - $
Dixon (one day event, 4,000 peopl, one-day)- $
Fresno - (one day event, 4,000 people) - *
Ventura - ( big event, 10,000 people over two days)*

[Kinetikat]

These comparisons are absolutely fascinating. I'm too tired to take it in right now, but I'll catch up on this.

Alan, the sheaf is an event that happens at some Games and not at others - this particular sheaf was made of broom, smothered in bright yellow broom flowers, and was very loose and unpopular with the guys. I had a stab at it while the guys were practising, but it was too heavy for me so I scratched in that event too.

Alex - actually the black leggings are very thin, so despite not being QUITE as draughty as the guys, I didn't roast... thankfully.

I don't know why the Games here bother with cash prizes - even the biggest, for the overall winner, is barely worth it when you compute in the athlete's time, meals and travel. Oh well.

[Livingston]

Great pics, Kinetikat! Love the first two to give a view of the area.

Jock, to compare with the games here in the US is probably not fair. For example, at Longs Peak Irish/Scottish Festival and Highland Games (to give it's full name) there are upwards of 70 clan tents, numerous food,highland clothing and other vendors. I'm not sure how many athletes are competing but typically there are 3 FULL days of competition. There are also usually 3 to 6 pipe bands and about 8 other music attactions. The piping competition also takes 3 FULL days. As I understand, attendence has been down the last couple years at about 30,000 and is usually around 40-45,000. We are located in a similar place for the view at Estes Park in Colorado.