Our must-attend 2024 Piping Live! festival events

The Piping Live! Glasgow International Piping Festival has officially started, with dozens of events across Scotland’s biggest city.

With so many options, how can you decide what to attend? pipes|drums is here to help.

So, if you don’t have unlimited time, as you might have to practice with your band, hold down a job, or simply don’t have the energy or money, we’ve picked two things to prioritize.

(Note that the marquee event of World’s Week, the Pre-World’s Concert, is probably not officially part of Piping Live! festival.)

Before we start, there are some ongoing things you should try to attend every day they’re on during the week, in addition to just hanging about the Street Café at the foot of the National Piping Centre’s McPhater Street headquarters (if you can get past the hoards of TikTok fans, be sure to check out Ally The Piper there on Monday at 16:00.)

• Pipe Idol – there are four heats, each with four pipers competing. These are some of the world’s top up-and-coming young pipers who are likely to one day populate the stages of Inverness, Oban and even the Glenfiddich.
• Lunchtime Recitals – a chance to hear some of the greats in the National Piping Centre’s sumptuous auditorium.  James Duncan McKenzie (Tuesday), Callum Beaumont (Wednesday), Fred Morrison (Thursday). Each £10.
• Learn@Live! – a new addition to PL, catch Bagpipe Reeds with Donald MacPhee (Tuesday), dealing with pressure with Matt MacIsaac (Wednesday), and composition with Fred Morrison (Thursday). Each £10.

Monday, August 12th

Masters Solo Piping Competition – over 20 of the world’s elite solo pipers dig into the piobs and MSRs in a contest that might be, piper-for-piper, the biggest and best standard there is. All day at the NPC’s McPhater Street HQ. £10.

Ceol Nua – the “avant-garde piping night” at Nice n Sleazy features the Sólàs Collective and the Nexus Project and is probably the furthest thing imaginable to the Masters above in terms of bagpipe music. £18.50. (Over 18 year-olds only.)

Tuesday, August 13th

International Quartet Competition – the most nerve-racking event in the pipe band world (for the players, anyway), this year featuring self-flagellationists from Shotts, Inveraray, Fife Police, The Feds, the Alumni, SLOT, and the Frasers, all-knowing one slip and they’re toast. Squeaky bum time for them, so be happy it’s not you on that stage. Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. (£18.50)

Wednesday, August 14th

Gordon Duncan Memorial Piping Competition – four pipers compete to win this prestigious prize, celebrating the music of Gordon Duncan in Scottish, Irish and Breton musical genres. 14:30, NPC McPhater Street. (£18.50)

Thursday, August 15th

Pipe Idol Grand Final – the four young pipers who qualified via the previous daily heats go head-to-head at 17:00 in the NPC’s auditorium for what is always a sweaty hammer-and-tongs event of incendiary digits. (£10)

Pipe-Major Alasdair Gillies Memorial Recital Challenge – the event that inspired it all a few decades ago as the Lord Todd Bar thingmee, the event still holds its unique status, letting five of the world’s hottest-handed and creative pipers have at it pretty much as they choose. Callum Beaumont, Alex Gandy, Stuart Liddell, Matt MacIsaac and Angus D. MacColl will be getting it done. Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. (£18.50)

Friday, August 15th

Croft No. Five featuring Ailis Sutherland with John Mulhearn’s the Pipe Factory – you’ve had a long and perhaps soggy day at Glasgow Green listening to the first day of Grade 1, so maybe take a load off the feet and the mind before you compete on Saturday with some of Scotland’s best Celtic folk musicians, at Saint Luke’s. (£20)

Saturday, August 16th

You’re kidding, right?

Sunday, August 17th

You’re either on a plane or at home nursing a pinging head after the Station or the Park Bar or both. Hope you had a great Piping Live!

Those are our picks. Everything is good, but if you have to pick and choose, you might start with those great events.

Stay tuned to pipes|drums all week for reports from the 2024 Piping Live! festival and then some!