‘Real gut-wrench’ — Kingsville-Essex Highland Games cancelled for 2025

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The 2025 Kingsville-Essex Highland Games have been cancelled this summer due to a scheduling conflict with a competing U.S. event.

A timing issue with the Ohio Scottish Games and Celtic Festival put the organizing committee in a difficult position this year, Doug Plumb, chair and founder of the local event told the Star.

With both events scheduled for June 28, the committee opted to “postpone” the event in Essex County until next year, he said.

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“The competing games in Ohio impacts our competitors and our attendees from the U.S. that come to the Kingsville-Essex Highland Games,” Plum said. “We didn’t have the flexibility to move the games.

“It’s a real gut-wrench — the Highland Games are very important to me.”

Each year, thousands of spectators gather to enjoy pipe-and-drum bands from Canada and the U.S., dancers, and traditional competitions like tug-of-war, shot put, and caber toss.

Kingsville had hosted the festival for nearly 20 years until it disappeared in 1987, but it was revived and returned to Lakeside Park in 2019 as the Kingsville-Essex Highland Games. 

The games were cancelled in 2020-21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The games relocated to Ty Cobb Field at Jack Miner Migratory Bird Sanctuary in 2023, but Plumb said the space proved to be too small.

The festival was relocated last summer to the Canadian Transportation Museum and Heritage Village. 

Plumb said the committee is rebranding the Highland Games to represent the entire region, renaming it the Windsor-Essex Highland Games. He hopes the change will allow the event to move around municipalities and be hosted in different locations each year.

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As part of the rebranding, Plumb said the event’s business model will also be revised to help establish a financial reserve for future years.

“We’re very conservative when we’re forming a budget, because a lot of time we’re working with other people’s money,” Plumb said. “We’re purely volunteer. Nobody makes a dime.

“We’re just trying to keep the Celtic traditions alive and have some fun at the same time.”

The committee’s decision to cancel this year’s event sparked disappointment from local attendees and fans as far away as Toronto, including one of Canada’s top pipe bands set to compete at this year’s games.

“We’ve got some great ideas (for 2026),” Plumb said. “I guarantee that whatever we do it’s going to be good. We’ll make up for the lost year.

“I’m being very optimistic about the whole thing. I think maybe in the long run, it might be a good thing to take a pause.”

Highland games can be traced as far back as the 11th century but the modern highland games are largely a Victorian invention, developed after the Highland Clearances when Scottish tenants were evicted from their homes between the mid-18th and 19th centuries.

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Around the world they are held as celebrations of Scottish and Celtic culture. While there are generally many aspects to Highland Games, three competitions are considered the pillars — piping and drumming, Highland dancing and Scottish heavy athletics. 

Provincially, competitions are overseen by The Pipers’ and Pipe Band Society of Ontario, which has a system for grading pipe bands, pipers and drummers. Various events are held throughout the year both at home and abroad, with bands graded from one (the highest) to five.

Many municipalities throughout Ontario have a local pipe band but not all choose to compete and be graded.

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