Worlds Tickets and Judges/ A Victorian’s View of Piping Part Two

Tickets for the World Pipe Band Championships are now on sale and can be bought by clicking here. Grade 1 seating is £28. A quick look reveals the following additional info:

ADVANCE TICKETS Friday 14  ​Saturday 15 ​Two-day 
Adults​ £4​ £12​ ​£15
​Children (6-15 years) and Concessions
£2​ ​£7 ​£8
​Family (2 adults & up to 3 children) £10​ £31​ ​£37

‘All purchases are subject to transaction fees. See bottom of page for details. These are advance prices. On the day tickets will cost more. Purchase no later than 13 August to take advantage of lower cost advance tickets. Friday’s programme consists of the Grade 1 Qualifiers: buy general admission tickets only to get access to the day’s competition, including to the Grade 1 seating bank on a first come, first served basis. Saturday’s programme includes the Championship finals and all other Grade competitions. General admission tickets give you access to the full site with the exception of the Grade 1 seating bank. Buy Grade 1 tickets to access the Grade 1 seating bank.Children aged 5 and under go FREE. Children’s tickets are available for ages 6-15 years old. ‘naill-banner-source

PP Editor adds: Just to get the gossip going (as if needed!) here are the judges who will decided the fate of the 200 plus bands taking part:

Grade 1 Qualifier 1:  MacShannon (P1),  Moffett (P2), H Russell (D), J Noble (E); Qualifier 2: McCarlie, Wilson, Dudgeon, Sloan. On the Saturday the judges for the 4B Final are Wark, T Brown, Steele, Ronaldson; 3B Final: Connor, MacShannon, Dudgeon, MacInnes; G2 Final: Mathieson, N Russell, Craig, Moles; G1 Med Final and Juv Final: Snaddon,  Campbell, Turner, Lawrie; G1 MSR Final: Eller, Ingram, D Brown, Baxter; 3A Final: Edgar, Garrett, Parkes, Hutcheon; 4A Final: Shaw, G Wilson, H Russell, Sloane; Nov. Final: Pollock, Stevenson, Black, Mordaunt. For a full run down of the adjudicators at all 2015 Majors go to www.rspba.org.

Anyone who is under any illusion about the global importance of the Worlds  (and goodness me, don’t we read some embarrassingly ill-informed rubbish about the Worlds and the RSPBA these days) should reflect that one distinguished visitor last year, among the 40,000 in attendance, was the US Ambassador to the UK His Excellency Mr Matthew Barzun. He is pictured here with RSPBA President George Ussher.us-ambassador-and-george

 

The picture at the very top of the article is the iconic Grade 1 Worlds trophy.


Today we publish the second historical article from Mr W McCombie-Smith. This time he looks at the influence the Army had on boosting the bagpipe’s reputation and then has some interesting comments on judging.G1