Glasgow’s Piping Live to expand as it celebrates its 10th year

Glasgow will host the world’s biggest ever week of piping and traditional music from August 11-18. Piping Live! Glasgow International Piping Festival will celebrate its 10th birthday with new venues and a week-long programme of performances, workshops and concerts, while The World Pipe Band Championships will take place over two days for the first time ever.

The programme for both events was launched with a little help from members of the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland who unveiled a set of the country’s biggest bagpipes at St Enoch Square to represent the scale of this year’s festivities.

St Enoch Square will act as the new hub for Piping Live! while George Square undergoes some changes and will offer a brand new performance tent featuring daily performances by folk musicians and pipers from across the globe.

Roddy MacLeod, festival director of Piping Live, explained: “Over the past 10 years we have brought the best pipers and traditional musicians from all over the globe to perform at the festival. It has been brilliant to see the interest in piping grow and to expose so many people to the diversity of the pipes – we’ve seen everything from the best solo pipers in the world perform to bands that mix the pipes with electronic music and it just gets more exciting each year.  We also have a few surprises up our sleeves.”

Added Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council and chair of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau: “Piping Live! and The World Pipe Band Championships are the real highlights of Glasgow’s cultural calendar over the summer, drawing thousands of visitors from across the UK and overseas and providing a significant boost to the local economy. Both events are celebrating major milestones this year, with Piping Live! marking its 10th birthday and the Worlds expanding across two days, which will deliver a truly spectacular week of superb traditional Scottish music and culture, and reinforce that Glasgow in August is the visitor destination to experience world piping of the highest quality.

“Over the coming weeks, city partners will be rolling out a multi-channel marketing communications campaign across Scotland and Ireland  – comprising TV, radio, print, outdoor and public relations activity – geared at showcasing Glasgow’s position as the epicentre of global piping and just what an amazing spectacle both of these events are.”

Last year, both events welcomed over 50,000 spectators and more than 8,000 musicians to Glasgow, but this is expected to increase in 2013, in line with the larger scale.