Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival, Inc. - Estes Park, Colorado

Taco C.

Honestly, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's in an absolutely gorgeous setting, but the festival itself was a bit of a let down.
Overall felt very disorganized, lots of events were cancelled or rescheduled last minute, parking was a disaster and there were very few signs to designate where different venues and stages are. The music that and performances were great.
The food was a huge let down, hardly any Scottish booths, closest thing was one selling meat pies.
There's a Viking section that was really cool, lots of people in traditional dress offering information on tools, weapons etc.
I've been to some of the bigger festivals so I might be judging it a bit too harshly. Worth a trip but wouldn't go back . Local wildlife was a huge bonus, keep an eye for elk just hang out around town.

Joel

It was fairly fun, and had the single most expensive drinks I have ever seen in my life. A 10 oz cup of mead, not even filled up is $20. Meh. No reason to ever return for me for the cost and value..

Jessica W.

This has gone so downhill. From the poor execution of the event - wrong address on prepaid parking One 90 year old man scanning QR codes at the entrance? An arthritic woman doing wristbands? A teeny sign indicating cash/card or prepaid… that’s before you enter. Once inside, what is there to do that you haven’t done 80 times there before? Wait in long lines for the SAME vendor food that hasn’t changed in more than a decade? And the only actual “traditional” food sold out at 12:30 on Saturday? Why? It’s not like they have no data of number of people to attend so they can’t calculate the amount of food to bring? The only thing that ran smoothly was the beer line (go figure!). The music was good and the strong competitions are fun and the only thing worth going for.
Do better Scottish Irish Festival Estes Park.

Ethan C.

I am so glad we did not buy tickets in advance. Those who had done so had to wait in line for almost an hour to get tickets scanned.
We got in in about 20 minutes as we bought our tickets at the door.
Very disappointed that the Sheepdog demonstrations were canceled, having been advertised on the website just a day before.
Long lines for expensive food, expensive drink, as at any event like this. There was some really good music and it's fun to walk around the clan tents. After going several times prior to Covid, this was my first time post-Covid. It was a big disappointment and expense.
Tip for next year: if you do go, buy your tickets at the gate and go after 1 PM. You only need three or four hours to see pretty much all the bands and activities. If you go later in the day you'll miss the huge lineups for parking and admission.
Be prepared for a lot of walking.

dw 9.

This festival has become money hungry, and is no longer the family picnic as it was originally intended to be. It is a Scottish festival, yet it is clan unfriendly, they charge a clan $200 to host a small tent. Most festivals charge $30-40.

I love to watch the highland games, but the seating area is just tiny tiny, and a strange angle. I feel that could have a significantly better seating area, maybe even bleachers?

The selection of merchandise to purchase, has gone down hill, my guess is probably the cost to host a booth.

The music is always great, I have never attended the extra events, just can't justify the costs.

I always love going up to watch the clan parade, but that gets smaller every year.

T M.

The Death of a Scottish Festival - spoiler alert - it is not Covid that is killing it but a systematic culling of heritage and people. Before you read on - note that the positive reviews are old and you can see them going down since 2016.

Let's start with what a Scottish/Irish Festival is - this is a place where clans come together to celebrate their history and help those that are interested in their heritage to learn more. The vendors help people to buy kilts in their tartan, t-shirts and other clan paraphernalia. Fifteen years ago that is what this festival was, but not since ~2016. This festival has grown very negative toward clans and vendors and has been getting worse by the year. Half of the clans were gone by 2018, and at least a third of the vendors (3 large tents down to 2). The clans are what bring people in, not only all of the member/volunteers that come but their family and friends but also people who want to learn their heritage. Without the clans, there is a huge loss of visitors. This year the clan tents were almost empty as people are not attending to ask and learn because they know that there is a chance that the clan they may belong to is not in attendance. In addition, there were 2 sparsely filled vendor tents that could have fit into one with a lot of room. This was due to many vendors pulling out after being informed that they had to sell the organizers CDs. Selling festival t-shirts, CDs, etc has always been done near the entrance to the festival and is the organizer's responsibility. In addition the fees are unreasonable for both clans and vendors. There was no traditional food (meat pies, haggis, scotch eggs) as these vendors pulled out the week before as well. Finally, the festival volunteers provided by the organizers are not trained, have no clue where things are located and obviously do not care. This is a reflection of the organizers, not the individual volunteers.

There are positives: the clans that are left are AMAZING and helpful to visitors (as is necessary per above), the vendors that are left are great, the music is wonderful, there are no more food/drink tickets.

Diane W.

2023, Friday was a large disappointment. No one signed up for the athletic competition and we were told that the dog and sheep had canceled the day before. The opening ceremony was nice though, especially the Old Guard. The people that were in the clan tents were very nice.

Katherine O.

This was our third time attending this event. This year we splurged and bought VIP tickets, which were a total waste. The entertainment was repetitive, even the same jokes at each performance. There wasn’t a headliner like Albanach, so that was disappointing. The evening concert had a small audience and nothing we hadn’t already heard during the day. The sound system was so screwed up that the concert stopped repeatedly. We ended up walking out, as did most of the audience. We were planning to attend every year, but will not be back. At the least, I expected an email apologizing for a subpar event.