Highlanders Festival returns to campus Saturday, Oct. 14

Live music!

Sheepherding!

Food. Lots of food!

Crafts, vendors, shopping and festivities for all ages.

And, of course, the famed heavyweight games.

Everything that makes the Radford Highlanders Festival a unique and special community event is back on the Radford University campus Saturday, Oct. 14.

The annual festival celebrates the region’s Scots-Irish heritage and is presented through a partnership between Radford University and the City of Radford. The festival is open to the public, and admission is free.

Each year, the Radford Highlanders Festival presents musical acts for the audience’s listening pleasure, and this year, the Scottish band Albannach and SYR, a Celtic folk-rock band from Columbia, South Carolina, will take the festival main stage.

Albannach says its main performance purpose is sharing “our intriguing culture, history and heritage” through its music. SYR takes inspiration from Celtic history, stories and myth to write and create powerful songs with themes of battle, love and victory.

Albannach will have two shows on the main stage at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. SYR takes the festival main stage three times throughout the day: 11 a.m., 1:45 p.m. and 4:15 p.m.

PanJammers, an award-winning steel drum orchestra based in Blacksburg, Virginia, will play at the Clocks Plaza from 11:15 a.m. until noon. Also performing at the Clocks will be Highland dancer Claire Pollite at 11 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. and Floyd Historic Dancers at 12:30 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. Hollace Oakes, who won first prize in the youth competition at the 2023 Galax Fiddler’s Convention, will delight the Highlanders Festival crowd at 1:15 p.m. Old-time musicians Dittyville – Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones – will perform at the red campus Clocks at 2 p.m.

Throughout the day, festivalgoers can seek out unique experiences such as sheepherding demonstrations, children’s games and pipe and drum bands. Several unique craft and food vendors will be at the festival, offering authentic Scottish fare and such tasty classic festival food as pizzas, burgers and delicious funnel cakes.  

A massed band performance and Scottish clans march is again scheduled for this year’s festival. Clans, a concept dating back to the 12th century, were extended networks of families loyal to a particular chief. The word clan is derived from the Gaelic 'clann,' meaning children.

The popular Tom Raisbeck Memorial Games again will feature the traditional “heavy games,” events and competitions associated with rural and military life, including weights for distance and height; the stones, similar to modern-day shotput; the sheaf toss; and the crowd-pleasing caber toss.

The Highlanders Festival began in the mid-1990s with about 3,000 people attending. Since then, the festival has more than tripled in size and now attracts an estimated gathering of 10,000 people each October.

To learn more about the Radford Highlanders Festival and complete a vendor registration form, visit https://www.radford.edu/content/festival/home.html. You may also follow the Highlanders Festival on Facebook.