Tick-tock: time running out to get in on Edinburgh contest

Despite being Scotland’s second-largest city and the country’s capital, 15 years have passed since Edinburgh has hosted an outdoor pipe band competition, but the July 24th Edinburgh Pipe Band Championships will change all that with a large event planned for the Ingliston Royal Highland Centre for bands of all grades. While entries, according to organizers, have been strong, time is running out if more bands want to go after the £5,000 total prize purse.

With a deadline of June 26th on the horizon, organizer John Hughes said in a release, “There is a real excitement about the Edinburgh Pipe Band Championship, the first piping event in the capital in over 15 years, and while we have a number of entries for Edinburgh’s first ever pipe band championship, we’re expecting a flurry of last minute applications. Entries will be taken up to Sunday 26th June so this really is the final call for bands wanting to be part of what is shaping up to be a really exciting event.”

The competition is to be run under the auspices of the RSPBA. While it has “championship” in its title, the contest is not one of the five majors on the RSPBA schedule.

First-prize in Grade 1 is £600 and four prizes are offered in each grade, with monies going to £80 for fourth in the Novice category.

Edinburgh in the past has played host to many pipe band competitions, including the World Pipe Band Championships on many occasions before the event became a fixture in Glasgow since the early 1980s. The most recent Edinburgh-based competitions were the popular Princes Street Gardens contest held at the foot of Edinburgh Castle and the annual Miners’ Gala at Holyrood Park, where Pipe bands sponsored by collieries competed against each other.