Sweet 16!
I never tire talking about the Hebridean Celtic Festival, its part of my life as it is for all the team behind this event. Having lived with it for 16 years it’s been amazing to watch it grow, like a child, slowly getting up on its feet, learning to walk, run, and yes it does feel as if we’ve had some teenage angst, but now I really do feel we are set up for adulthood.
That family feeling is very much at the core of HebCelt. Living in a small community inevitably we’ve dragged in close family members over the years. But many of the long term volunteers have become close to us also, hence the feeling that when we get together in the summer it feels like one big family reunion and I think the audience responds to that. Many exiles target festival week as a time to come home, to be with family and party. Folks the world over that have no island connections now target their annual holidays around the festival and we love seeing them coming ‘home’ each year.
Of course the festival is not just about the music, fabulous though it is, it’s about the community setting; the place, the people. That special sense of being in the midst of something much bigger than the sum parts of the whole, the huge swelling of goodwill that pushes behind us like a tidal wave.
Personally it’s rewarding to see the next generation who were babes themselves when the festival started now taking an active role in running of the event. The wee ones who used to come along with their parents who are now going along with their mates. The new season must have cool festie hoodie culture that has emerged. The ‘kids’ who are now making great music, earning a living, travelling the world who were inspired to do so by their HebCelt experiences. Seeing a smile on the faces of so many watching the amazing acts we’ve had over the years. It swells the heart; I love it, warts and all, it’s unconditional.
Caroline Maclennan is the Hebridean Celtic Festival Director: this year’s acts include KT Tunstall, Peatbog Faeries, Stornoway, Eddi Reader, Seth Lakeman and many others.
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