FERGUS – A little rain didn’t bring down the Fergus Scottish Festival as organizers are calling the most recent edition a success.
Elizabeth Bender, Scottish festival executive director, said in a phone interview preliminary numbers are showing around 24,000 people came to the festival over the course of the weekend.
This is down slightly from last year, which saw 26,000 attendees, which Bender chalked to people being excited to attend events after COVID had shut down most events a few years in a row.
Still, this surpasses the goal organizers set of 20,000.
“One of the things we were most pleased about this year is just how content everyone was, everyone was having a really great time and it was a really happy feeling,” Bender said.
“Some of the anxiety and the stress of last year in the first event post-COVID was not there. People were truly enjoying the programming. They knew we had them covered in terms of health and safety and being able to present our programming in the best way possible.”
Rain came down hard Saturday morning for about 45 minutes, Bender said, which caused a bit of a slow start to that day which didn’t last long as crowds came in droves.
“It was very Scottish feeling, we kind of joked that was part of the programming to bring some Scottish weather,” Bender said.
This year also featured the Heavy Events World Championships which ended up being won by American John Van Beuren.
“I could not believe how far these guys were throwing things, it was incredible,” Bender said.
Friday evening’s Tattoo’d In Tradition opening ceremony and headlining performance by Glass Tiger was well attended and Sunday may have been one of the festival’s best in its history, according to Bender.
Organizers get a slight break but planning is already underway for the 2024 festival.