The Piping Live! Festival (a.k.a. Piping Hot Festival) is an annual

bagpiping Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

event held in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

by the

National Piping Centre The National Piping Centre is an institution in Glasgow, Scotland, dedicated to the playing of the bagpipes, to include not only the Great Highland Bagpipes, but also the Scottish smallpipes and Irish uileann pipes, as well as other traditional ...

. The festival was created in 2003 and occurs on the run-up to the

World Pipe Band Championships The World Pipe Band Championships is a pipe band competition held in Glasgow, Scotland. The World Pipe Band Championships as we currently know them have been staged since 1947 although the Grade 1 Pipe Band Competition winners at the annual Cowal ...

. It is estimated that the festival alone adds £12 million to Scotland's tourism revenue and it is the largest bagpipe festival in the world. The festival is always opened with performances in the Royal Concert Hall by musicians including

The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland is a youth pipe band headed by Steven Blake, consisting of over 100 members who teach and perform around the British isles. The band was founded in 2003 as part of the National Piping Centre in Glasgow and ...

. The festival itself consists of over 150 individual events including free classes, concerts and ceilidhs throughout the week. The festival also has its own "Canada Day" to celebrate the multitude of Canadian Grade I bands who participate in the Championships. The Piping Centre also produces and releases albums around the festival, such as Seudan by the band of the same name in 2011. The festival won Event of The Year at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards in 2008 and in 2010

Eve Muirhead Eve Muirhead (born 22 April 1990) is a Scottish former curler from Perth and the skip of the British Olympic Curling team. Muirhead and the GB team became Olympic champions at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, having previously won the bro ...

was named the festival's ambassador in an effort to reach out to a younger audience. The event is directed by

Roddy MacLeod Roddy MacLeod, MBE (born August 26, 1962) is a Scottish bagpiper, director of the annual Piping Live! Festival and former principal of the National Piping Centre. He is known to be vocal against Scottish reforms in the realm of piping. In 2006 ...

References

{{coord missing, Glasgow Music festivals in Scotland Tourist attractions in Glasgow Piping events