Modesto group in a bind to present 2017 Scottish Highland Games

After heat last spring deeply cut into the gate for the 35th annual Modesto Scottish Highland Games & Celtic Festival, the St. Andrew’s Society faces a struggle to present the event next year.

Meteorologists predicted the high temperature June 4 could reach 108 degrees, said Vicky Wolff, games chairwoman for the society. A Modesto Bee story a few days before the event read, “Saturday could be another 104-degree day, again breaking the 1981 record for June 4: 102 degrees.”

As it turned out, the high that day in Modesto was 95 degrees, according to Modesto Irrigation District weather records. No matter – the damage was done.

The extreme heat forecasts are the only reason game organizers can figure for why attendance was off 70 percent at Tuolumne River Regional Park, Wolff said. The only other big event in the area that day was the Apricot Fiesta in Patterson. The Highland Games often fall on the same day as Graffiti Summer car shows and other events, Wolff said, “but we work around those things all the time,” and attendance has been steady at 2,000 people.

But June 4, Wolff said she could look down aisle after aisle of the Celtic Festival and see barely anyone there. “It was probably one of our best games, too,” Wolff said of what people missed. “We spent more on entertainment than in the past, because we want to keep people there all day.”

The Scottish Highland Games & Celtic Festival costs about $15,000 to put on, Wolff said. “We have to pay the athletes $1,700 total. We have four stages of entertainment. Our highland dancers get paid a couple thousand dollars. All of our pipe bands. ... There’s sound equipment rental, and generators, because there’s no electricity in the park.”

Ticket revenue alone doesn’t keep the games and festival going, Wolff said. “For what we put out, we make a few thousand. It’s not like we’re making $20,000 on it – I wish we were.”

The society’s biggest annual fundraiser is its Celtic Ceilidh, an evening of live music and dancing, this year being held Oct. 15. But because the society was left in the red by the low turnout at June’s games, it plans some other fundraisers, including a yard sale and bake sale Friday and Saturday. The organization needs to raise at least $6,000 to hold the 2017 games, Wolff wrote in a Sept. 12 letter to society members.

The topics of raising the admission price and changing the date of the games have been broached, Wolff said. Over the past decade, adult admission (children 12 and under get in free) has crept up from $10 to $11 to $13 to the current $15. “We haven’t wanted to go to $20, which is what a lot of the games are,” Wolff said.

As for when the games are held, June has been preferred because children are out of school and families have more time, she said. Still, “we’re discussing a move, maybe to May,” she said.

But as the society learned well before this year, even Valley weather can be unpredictable. In 2011, heavy rain – more than half an inch – canceled three community events in Modesto: the Scottish Highland Games, the downtown Graffiti Fest and a related car show at Modesto Junior College.

Looking at torrents coming down on tents already set up, the board made a last-minute decision to scrap the event that year, Wolff recalled. “This one guy came up and said, ‘I wait all year for this. What’s a little rain for a Scotsman?’ But it was going to be more than a little rain. ... It never let up until late afternoon.”

By canceling, the society didn’t lose any money that year, Wolff said, and started carrying rain insurance. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like heat insurance is an option.

This story was originally published October 3, 2016 at 9:02 AM with the headline "Modesto group in a bind to present 2017 Scottish Highland Games."