Winter Storm tracking for record windfall attendance

With about a week to go the annual Winter Storm in Kansas City, Missouri, has 186 solo piping and drumming competition entries and is expecting more than 350 students at the workshop – potentially record numbers for the thirteenth annual event, this time January 9-11, 2015.

The previous record for solo entries was 160 in 2014.

Further, according to organizer Cliff Davis, the Saturday night concert featuring instructors and major winners is trending towards a sell-out, with very few of the 1,000 tickets still available.

The Friday Gold Medal Piobaireachd, Gold Medal Light Music-Qualifier and Final, Gold Medal Snare Drumming Final, and the Awards Ceremony will be streamed live for free, as will the Saturday evening concert. The Midwest Highland Arts Fund has started an Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign to offset the costs of the streaming.

Instructors and judges at the 2015 edition of Winter Storm include Brian Donaldson, Ken Eller, John Fisher, Roddy MacLeod, Willie McCallum, Doug Stronach and Jack Taylor.

Winter Storm is also hosting the ANAPBA Summit, about which Davis said, “We have arranged luxury meeting space for the two day Summit at the Simpson House which is one block from the Winter Storm campus. We’ll also cater award-winning Kansas City BBQ lunch on Saturday to the ANAPBA attendees.”