Your host Bill Reid
Bill and Karen Reid launched the Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival 23 years ago. They’ve triumphed over snowstorms, unexpected construction building projects, falling ceiling tiles … we can even remember when the lights went out for hours.
Problems like that might have stopped anybody else, but for whatever reason—perhaps because it is so well planned and skillfully orchestrated–nothing stops this festival.
Probably the best example of the festival’s endurance is, in fact, the day the lights went out. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face down in the exhibit hall at what is now known as the Valley Forge Casino. Somehow they managed. There was music and dance, even if the scrounged-up emergency lighting was just barely adequate. Best of all was the Scottish tribal drum band, whose players wrapped sticks and mallets with glow-in-the-dark necklaces, and played a rollicking set.
We’ve put together a few video interviews with Bill Reid. You’ll find out how it all got started, how his son Drew became the musical phenom known as Digeridrew, and how much craziness sometimes goes on behind the scenes.
Happy viewing!
