The Highlands return on a high: Scottish Festival draws more than 3,000 for weekend celebration

The Highlands returned and left visitors and organizers on a high over the weekend for the annual Columbus Scottish Festival.

An estimated 3,000-plus people attended the Saturday and Sunday event at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds a year after it was canceled because of a lack of sufficient sponsor support. It also was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“After being away for two years, we weren’t quite sure what would happen, and if people would return,” said Mike Bostelman, festival president.

The festival, though popular for a long time here since its beginnings in 1992, had suffered through horrible and extremely rainy weather that hampered attendance in recent years and adversely impacted organizers’ already stretched budget.

“We had people already waiting for us to open the gates (Saturday morning),” Bostelman said.

The 2,000 people attending Saturday — mostly people from all over Indiana — made up for what ended up being a shortage of sponsors and a shortage of volunteers. In fact, Saturday’s attendance probably matched 2019 record Saturday attendance, according to organizers.

Plus, social media featured some first-time attendees thanking organizers for their work and mentioning what an enjoyable time their family had at the event.

“Yes, we noticed that a lot of Facebook traffic was new,” Bostelman said.

Highland dance and pipe band performances were limited to demonstrations instead of competitions, but he emphasized that people enjoyed them.

And never let it be said that the gathering ignored echoes of the Motherland’s rich and bold history. One dish at one of the food stand was known as the William Wallace. That vendor sold out of food on Saturday and others did a brisk business that day. Bostelman figured that weather forecasts that predicted rain all day “probably kept some people away,” he said.

As it turned out, though skies were mostly cloudy Sunday, rain was minimal.

“This was a little bit of a scary festival for us,” Bostelman said. “Because you’ve got to have enough money to cover expenses.”

He said the good news is that attendance seems strong enough to provide “enough seed money for upfront expenses next year.” He mentioned that organizers will begin working on sponsorships for next year, and troubleshooting how to boost its volunteer total, especially since a number of those this year worked multiple shifts in order for everything to run smoothly.

But Bostelman added that he understands that many community events have suffered with a volunteer shortage, including the just-canceled Festival of Lights Parade.