Virginia Scottish Games and Festival

Held over Labor Day weekend, this was a lovely day out with the family. We arrived early to beat the heat and had no problem with parking and were quickly in. Our little one loved the Scottish Dog Racing run. (A fenced off straightaway where one or two dogs chased a fuzzy thing on a winch). Pretty fun to watch for the adults who love dogs. The fiddling competition was super as was the sheepherding demonstrations. There was a nessie bouncy house and archery with nerf arrows and balloon swords and face– painting for the kids. A play for the kids that ended with the kids in the audience having a massive balloon sword fight with the actors.
Great vendors, plenty of good food. The clans proudly shared their history and heritage. So a super time for history buffs. Meanwhile feats of strength at the games including sheaf tossing and Scottish hammer throwing. Scottish music with bagpipes and dance. And, of course, lots of kilts.
Great time for all! Can’t wait for next year.

This is held at Great Meadow in The Plains now. I’ve been to this festival before and it was much better. We arrived at 10:30 just when it was starting to rain. They made everyone stay in their cars due to lightning, which was not a problem. We ended up waiting for the storms to pass for three hours. When they finally let us in, they charged us full ticket price. When questioned about it, this woman who had been running around barking orders at everyone snottily told us that they were open until 9 pm. We only had three hours left to be there b/​c we had to be somewhere else. She said that wasn’t her problem. I thought the least they could have done was offer us a free ticket for the next day or not charge us as much. For the short time we were there, we made the best of it, but we were disappointed with it this year.

It was my first time visiting the Virginia Scottish Games. In past years, this event was held in the June/​July timeframe at a high school in Alexandria, VA. A lot of people complained about both the time of the year the event was held — that it was to damn hot out — and that it was not a very scenic venue.
So for the first time — the event was moved out into the country to Sky Meadows State Park as well changing the time of the event to mid-​September.
I’ve never been to Sky Meadows State Park — it was about a 30 minute drive to the park from where I live in Centreville, VA. It was a beautiful day out for Highland Games and the park itself has a lot of scenic beauty — being part of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain. So I drove out by myself.
There was a $ 5.00 charge for parking and then a short drive wending one’s way over hill and dale until you arrived in the parking area. There was a $ 15.00 admission fee to get into the festival.
I got there about 2:00 pm and made my way over to the music stage area to watch Celtic Rock artists Rathkeltair perform. As always, Rathkeltair kicked ass on stage. Neil Anderson of Rathkeltair was back with the band after being deployed for more than a year in Iraq. After the first set, I went and chatted with the guys from Rathkeltair and had my picture taken with them.
I went over to the food area and got in line to get some vittles. It took wayyyyyy to long to get food — the lines moved at a glacial pace — not very well organized. When I got up to the front of the line — I ordered the Haggis (something I’ve never tried), plus a meat pie and an order of fries. There was a sign stating that their Haggis was made with lamb, liver, oatmeal, and other ingredients. I tried it plain and found I really did not like it. So I put a healthy dose of hot sauce on the Haggis and was able to eat it. I’m sure it did not resemble or taste like traditional Scottish Haggis — which is probably even worse!
Afterwards I wandered through the Scottish & Irish vendors area and decided to purchase a custom celtic neck torque from R.E. Piland Goldsmiths. They took my neck measurements and I made a down payment on the torque.
It was a very windy day and at times it felt a bit chilly if you were in the shade.
The two things I would ding the Festival organizers for is that the line to get into the festival took way too long, and the food area was inadequate to handle the lines. Next year they need to do a much better job of handling these areas and add a lot more capacity to handle all of the people.
On the plus side, gorgeous mountain park, combined a nice time of the year for a festival!