Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Details: Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games

What: Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games
When: Sat. Aug. 14 - Sun. Aug. 15, 2010
Time: both days and in to the evening
Where: Fergus, Ontario (near Guelph)
Bring: Camera stuffs!! Maybe a telephone pole if you want to crash the caber tossing competition.

I always enjoy this festival as a photo taking op. There is Scottish Highland dancing, there are large Scottish bagpipe and drum bands, there is sheep herding, Celtic music performances, there'll be haggis and yes, it will be a Licensed event, tug of war contest, Heavies Events (caber tossing, hammer throwing and other events). Men in skirts - the sounds of hundreds of bagpipes blaring - what more could you want?

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Philmar - great pictures in your photostream of the games! It looks like fun. Not sure if I can make it this year but if I can and can offer a ride I will post back in the thread.

I would like to see the telephone pole toss, do you know what they call that in the schedule?

This is closer to my neck of the woods than most events so I'm a maybe. All the bagpipes aren't sweetening the deal for me.

It's referred to as the caber toss and it is one of the events in the Heavies competition. The Heavies is like the decathlon - a competition of many different activities. Caber tossing is one of them. The pros will be competing Saturday (doing all their events that day) and then Sunday it's the amateurs, women and senior men competing all day (if I read the schedule correctly). But DO check because I was in a rush when I read it.
http://www.fergusscottishfestival.com/i ... eavyEvents

They start at 8:30 AM but the competition will take all day. So there's always a few burly lads in skirts throwing something heavy in to the air.

...it would after a wee dram of single malt scotch.

Thanks Philmar. I saw the Heavies starting at 8:30 and it seemed a tad early for what I would imagine would be a popular event at a festival of that nature.

Based on your photostream, it looks like there was no issues with SLR's at the grounds?

Nor issues with tripods/monopods/flash

I've been to the tattoo years ago, and there used to be a parade as well, but not to the other events. Unfortunately, though, I'm busy next weekend.

I'm heading there already. it's one of the best festivals going imho. Absolutely huge with tons of stuff going on. The heavy games are all great as are all the dance competitions which is all accompanied by the continuous drums and pipes in the background.

Some of my photos from last year are: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizbot/set ... 825868741/

good stuff!! I think I'm headed up on the Saturday as I want to focus on the tug-of-war competition and Heavies. Festivals past I always seem to have gone on the Sunday.

It seems my sunflower thread seems to have sparked more interest than this one.