Short shrift?

The thought that the Maxville people are suggesting canning the PPBSO’s Professional Piobaireachd event seems to be confusing a lot of people, including me. There are conflicting stories about it, so who knows what will happen?

I do know this: associations need to do a better job of promoting and communicating what they have. Now, I voluntarily sit on the PPBSO’s Music Board, so I’m as much to blame, I suppose, as the next person. But somewhere along the line, if the North American Championship is even considering pulling funding from the most prestigious single solo piping event on the continent, what does that say about us?

The fact that the Maxville folks aren’t already selling tickets for the Professional piping events is an opportunity missed. They aren’t to blame. They probably look at it naturally as an expensive headache with no ROI. The event itself is shunted around the park and for the past few years inhabits a spot under a tree with  toilets on one side and a pedestrian thoroughfare with thousands of people shuffling by not even realizing that the piper playing could be a Gold Medallist or Clasp winner on the other. You gotta see it to believe it.

It’s another example of pipers and drummers and an organization not doing a good job at promoting and marketing its unique and specialized product. Oh, the outrage! Maxville may want to pull the plug on this near-60-year-old event!

Really, now. Who can blame them for not knowing what they don’t know?