Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games

This is an event our family looks forward to every year!The music and musicianship is unparalleled and it's great to see members from different bands stop in and play with one-another. It gives a real feeling of camaraderie and family. And that feeling of camaraderie and unity goes beyond the music to the people attending the festival. Everyone is friendly and forthcoming.While the emphasis is primarily on the music and the games, there are a lot of great events that go overlooked. (I mentioned this to the yelper who complained that it's just about drinking beer and wearing kilts.) The opening ceremony, the dog show, the many presentations on Scottish families and culture, the discussions you strike up at the clan tents,and most of all the Sunday Morning Church Service. I'm not the most religious guy in the world, but I find the interdenominational service very moving. And it's the only worship service where I can bring my dog, as many others do. So it's no just interdenominational, it's interbreed!To really get the best out of the Festival, go online and check the schedule. Many of the events happen only once over the course of the Festival, so don't risk the possibility of missing out on events you might possibly want to see.We'll see you there! Look for a couple with a Golden Retriever. And introduce yourself!

This was our first visit to the Texas Scottish Festival, and it was great! I'll be frank upfront and say that our main draw was one of the bands (Jiggernaut; one of my friends is in the band and they're awesome, check 'em out!), but we were pleasantly surprised at all there was on offer, even though we only attended on Sunday afternoon. The food choices had dwindled a bit (no Scottish eggs, I had a sad), but what was left was pretty good from our samplings, although perhaps not strictly Scottish fare (jambalaya, anyone?). I'm not a huge beer drinker, but there were plenty of brews available and and a number of locations. As for the non-food, non-band offerings: There was a huge marketplace spread throughout the grounds, selling everything from period correct clothing, jewelry and other items, plus lots of family shields/coats-of-arms etc. Many of the vendors were dressed in period clothing as well, lending a good feel to the whole event. If there was a knock at all, it was that some of the cable protectors placed across walkways were too tall for my wife's handicap cart; they need to consider some ramps on top of these in the future. Other than that, keep up the great work!

We attended the TSF&HG this year and were really disappointed. My in-laws (who are from Scotland) timed their visit from Australia (where they live now) so that we could all attend (we drove up from Austin). Their website was full of a bunch of bollocks about 50-60k people attending every year. Even if they were padding the numbers, they wouldn't have been able to claim more than 10-12k this year.Maybe this was because there was no way in hell anyone who wasn't LOOKING FOR the festival would have had any way of finding it. Even though we knew where we were going, it took us five minutes of driving through small UTA parking lots before we saw a St. Andrew's Cross and made our way toward it. There was no advertising, and not even a sign or banner until you were actually AT the festival.Everything was poorly laid out, and poorly timed. It was swelteringly hot (they DO know we're in Texas, not Scotland, right?!), and I don't know if they were expecting a magical influx of people, but it was WAY too spread out. You had to walk across the football field to get from one end of the festival to the other, and there really wasn't much of anything in between.There were some authentic Scottish and Irish products for sale, but there were just as many head-shop type booths, cheap carnival games and, get this, a RE-BATH booth trying to get people to sign-up for remodels. WTF?! Also, the Scottish foods on offer were outnumbered by trucks selling greasy, under-cooked, carnival food.However, this was the real kicker - even with just 3k people in attendance on any given day - the parking lot was grossly undersized. I can't imagine what they were going to do when the other 47-57k people showed up!They also told us that no dogs other than Scottish breeds were going to be allowed into the park, and that this would be strictly enforced, so we left our dogs at home for three days (obviously with someone to look in on them and feed them). No one controlled what animals were brought in, and there were heaps of dogs that were not of Scottish origin roaming around. Don't get me wrong - I love dogs and wanted to bring my own - but either let dogs in or don't. Don't prattle on about rules and fines when the same people were bringing in the same dogs each day.In my opinion, this festival was poorly organized. Whoever is in charge of it needs to pass the baton to someone else. We all wasted the only long weekend we had with our in-laws at a festival that made big promises and delivered blisteringly hot mediocrity.

Dangit' Nickie G! --you scooped me again!I've been going to the North Texas Scottish Festival for a while now and, being Scottish on both sides, it still is one of the most fun things to do, for me!There's not too much more to be said than what Nickie wrote...which is all that I was *about* to write! Ha!If you're used to Scarborough Faire, this is not the same. You still get some of the fantasy dress characters, but not *nearly* as much. It really is an immersion in all things Scottish, from Clan tents to learn more about family roots, to bagpipe bands, scotch tastings, ale, haggis, highland games, highland dance competition etc... It's a great time. And usually hot. very hot. Make sure you have some water for every couple of beers you have.I competed in the highland games a couple of years ago, and am going to try to do it next June--hope to see you all there!!and great review Nickie!PS: After our day at the festival and Lainey and I got home, I proposed to her in my KILT! Yeah! Better yet she said yes!...

Went last nite around 9PM as the festivities were winding down but that doesn't mean it was a bore. Lots of good beer...Belhaven was the brew of choice. Also being served were traditional Scottish dishes like haggis, scotch eggs, stews, fish and chips.Caught a little bit of the sports action too. A bunch of guys trying to throw a large weight over a raised bar. Was actually pretty interesting. Music was cool as they had two different tents...one with acoustic instruments and the other with electric. Would like to try this again next year and go during the day.

The Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games is a terrific opportunity to experience Scottish culture. Music is a cornerstone, including the ubiquitous bagpipe bands, celtic folk music, and popular celtic rock. Scottish athletic events showcase professional and amateur participants in the caber toss, hammer throw and more. This is truly a family event with activities designed for children. This event is a delightful way to spend a Texas weekend.

Really enjoyed this event last year, just wish I would have found it sooner. Cant wait for this year!

A nice little festival that needs LOTS MORE ADVERTISING!It's moving to May next year, so that should solve my major complaint... the heat. June is the wrong time of year to hold an outdoor event like this as its just to bloody hot. Attendance has been dwindling because of it.Still, lots of men in kilts, and more importantly, women in mini kilts!

My family and I used to go to this every year when it was Arlington... it was a good time and growing in popularity (lots of vendors, food, activities, etc) Unfortunately, the last 5ish years the festival hasn't grown... it's gotten smaller and more boring. Not as many vendors and very little to do. The drive up to Decatur is very long. I assumed that the Scottish festival was copying the renaissance festival and creating its own grounds to be used year after year... nope, it's a rented livestock grounds. It's really too bad that they don't take a page from the renaissance festivals playbook and get more vendors and activities. This place could be great and really show off the Scottish culture... but right now, it's very meh. And a very long drive for what it is.

This year was not quite as fun as previous years. I bought tickets in advance for Friday only to arrive and find out that none of the bagpipe bands would be there on Friday. That was very disappointing. I liked the music and entertainment, but I found it ridiculous that almost every band or group that was entrusted with a microphone, abused it by using their platform to spread COVID disinformation. I wanted to remind one band member that his job was "a guitarist" and not a doctor. He used his platform to spread his anti-vax opinions as if he was some kind of authority on the effectiveness of vaccines. The outing would have been much more enjoyable if not for the political bandwagoning by the performers. Last I knew, Scottish culture wasn't owned by right wingers. Sorry, people on the left like Scottish culture too. Hopefully next year will be a far less hostile, in your face environment. We paid for tickets to the Scottish festival to have fun, not to have conspiracy theories and right wing political views stuffed down our throats. Not impressed with this year's festival.