L&C to provide audio from indoor contest for download

Audio files of the 10th anniversary Lomond & Clyde Pipe Band Indoor Invitational Competition on March 20th in Glasgow will be made available for download via the band’s website in what may be a first for a full Grade 1 band competition in Scotland that isn’t called the World Pipe Band Championships.

Organizers from Lomond & Clyde say that full audio files of both the heats and the final will be made available beginning on March 24th at www.lomondandclyde.co.uk

The competition, which was announced last August, has been organized to help mark Lomond & Clyde’s decade as a band. Eight bands had originally accepted their invitation to compete in the event, but Boghall & Bathgate withdrew in early-February, replaced by Torphichen & Bathgate. Ballycoan pulled out on short-notice, leaving the organizers unable to find a replacement.

The competition offers a first-prize of £2,500, a second-prize of £1,500, and £500 and £100 to third- and fourth-place finishers.

Other bands scheduled to compete are Cullybackey, Fife Constabulary, House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead, Inveraray & District, Robert Wiseman Dairies-Vale of Atholl and the Tayside Police. The competition will be the first full-band event by Inveraray & District in Grade 1 after its promotion following an undefeated year in Grade 2 in 2009.

Lomond & Clyde executed another UK first by posting a video of the draw for the competition on YouTube.