Inveraray Pre-World’s Concert on for August

Reigning World Champion Inveraray & District’s pre-world’s concert is confirmed on for Wednesday, August 10th, after a two-year delay due to the pandemic.

The show, named “A Night in that Land,” was being prepared in April 2020 when COVID-19 caused its cancellation. The event was again nixed in 2021, along with the entire pipe band competition season in the UK and much of the world.

The annual concert at the 2,475-seat Glasgow Royal Concert Hall is put on by the Grade 1 Glasgow Skye Association but, with that band’s ongoing search for both a pipe-major and lead-drummer and not expected to compete in 2022, speculation arose that the 2022 might not happen in any capacity.

Glasgow Skye manager Kurt MacKintosh said that the price of tickets remain at £22 and are on sale from the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall box office.

MacKintosh said that about 800 tickets had been refunded to those who requested them, and that the approximately 1,600 tickets still with purchasers would be honoured.

With relatively few non-UK bands reportedly planning to travel to the 2022 World Pipe Band Championships, the audience for the show will be far less of the international crowd that traditionally attends.

“We were scheduled to play in 2020 which was, of course, postponed,” said Inveraray & District and solo piping rock star Pipe-Major Stuart Liddell. “We had planned again for the 2021 concert but we’re hoping it’s third time lucky! The material has been simmering away and we’ve also been able to work on some cool new ideas.  The band is very much looking forward to getting together and playing in front of an audience again.”

“We are very much looking forward to playing the 2022 Pre-World’s concert,” Lead-Drummer and 10-time World Solo Drumming Champion Steven McWhirter added. “After everything that has gone on over the past two years the band are very excited to perform a whole host of new music to everyone who has been starved of live pipe band music. The best way to sum up the music on offer is ‘there’s something for everyone!'”

Inveraray & District headlined the 2013 Pre-World’s Concert, which was captured in a recording that is considered one of the greatest ever made by a pipe band.

The annual concert has been promoted by Glasgow Skye Association since 1994. The event is considered an honour to perform, and other bands to have mounted shows are Field Marshal Montgomery, Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia, Glasgow Police, Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia, Simon Fraser University and St. Laurence O’Toole.

The concert is not officially connected with neither Piping Live! nor the World Championships but, like those two events, depends largely on each of them to draw its audience.

“Its been a bit of a rollercoaster ride over the past two years to say the least,” MacKintosh commented. “Everyone in the pipe band community will be as delighted as we are that we are able once again to showcase the best bands in the world in front of a live audience. I’d like to put on record my thanks to Inveraray & District  for their unwavering support throughout this period. We have no doubt the band will put on another fantastic show.

“I would also like to thank everyone who kept hold of their tickets in the hope we would once again get IDPB back at the Pre Worlds Concert. Due to this overwhelming support, we will only have around 700 tickets available for immediate public resale. Patrons who have retained tickets from the original 2020 concert will now be contacted by the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall box office to confirm whether they are happy to accept the rescheduled date. Full refunds are available for anyone who is no longer able to make the new date. We  may therefore be able to release some additional tickets as we work our way through this process.”

Related

Newsflash: Inveraray & District concert is off
April 4, 2020

Inveraray back for another Pre-World’s Concert
February 23, 2020