World’s Juvenile events move to Friday under “Youth Championship” umbrella
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association has announced the “World Youth Pipe Band Championship” that will take place at the World Championships on Friday, August 15th.
The news was made public at around 5 pm GMT on Friday, March 14th, with no more details than that. However, sources within the organization have said that all Juvenile and Novice Juvenile competitions, customarily held on Saturday, will move to Friday.
To accommodate the Youth Championship events, the timing of the first day of Grade 1 Medley and MSR competitions reportedly will have to overlap rather than be held back-to-back.
The RSPBA described the newly-named youth competitions as a “landmark event.”
The announcement was mainly well-received on social media, though some detractors noted that members of Juvenile and Novice Juvenile bands would not get to participate in the Saturday march-past unless, possibly, their band stays around in uniform for an extra day. Others wondered about parents having to take vacation days from work.
“I think it’s important to recognize that this was designed with full and lengthy consultation including an extensive group of global novice and juvenile bands,” RSPBA Adjudicator Panel Management Board convener and judge Robert Mathieson commented several times on Facebook. “Whether it’s the finished article remains to be seen but no doubt it will be tweaked after valid feedback from 2025. Let’s applaud the efforts and engage in future improvements. Well done, RSPBA.”
Though a live stream of any Friday events has not been confirmed, it would likely be a popular tradeoff for missing the Saturday march past.
The 2024 World Championships encountered a significant problem when the Novice Juvenile B competition results were incorrectly tabulated. The band announced as winners at the event eventually had their prize taken away days later when the problem was uncovered.
The August 15th date falls either just after or just before Scotland’s state-run schools’ summer holidays end. According to Glasgow City Council, the return date for pupils from summer holidays is Thursday, August 14th, the day before the World’s Youth Championships. Edinburgh Council shows Wednesday, August 13th, for the start of the school year. In Fife, schools start on Tuesday, August 19th; Highland Council lists the 2025-26 school year beginning on August 17th or 18th. “Independent” or “fee-paying” schools each set their own dates every year.
RSPBA Chief Executive Colin Mulhern has not yet responded to a request for comment and more details about the Youth Championship.
The juvenile grade is the most enjoyable in the whole competition, so for me this decision is a shame, because I now won’t see and hear it live.
Anything that would avoid the need to endure the 2-3 hour march past on Saturday has to be a plus. Please RSPBA, get rid of that anachronistic spectacle.
This segregation of the Worlds is all kinds of wrong.
My son plays in the Juvenile grade and says the kids in his band are extremely disappointed not to be sharing the big day with their adult heroes. It does not happen at other majors and there is no good reason for it to happen at the Worlds (RSPBA ineptitude aside). My son’s band were consulted by their leadership on this before the decision was made and the unanimous verdict was that they did not want the segregation. This was fed back to the RSPBA. So it begs the question; how many other leadership teams actually asked the kids what they wanted? My strong suspicion is; not many.
This is the showcase event of the piping calendar, but many of the kids will not now attend the Saturday and will miss out on hearing the best adult bands.
The attendance for the Saturday will suffer badly with far fewer kids and their family members attending (I usually buy 4 tickets but won’t now be going on the Saturday and will only need 1 for the Friday because everyone else will be working). Many neutral spectators will miss out on seeing kids bands as people may not be able to afford both days and will chose the Saturday (not least because they may be working on the Friday). I expect the general feel of the Saturday competition especially will be much diminished as a result, with the kids left to feel like they are a warm-up act for the ‘real’ Worlds the next day.
Progress???