The Bagpipe Society

International Bagpipe Day and Conference

International Bagpipe Day is now a well established and increasingly popular event. Every March 10th you are invited to go out and play your pipes – anywhere, anyhow to anyone!

In 2013 we had an excellent event in Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford – amazingly – visitor numbers increased by 25% compared to normal attendance at that time of year. We also received reports back from around the world, ranging from a pipe band performance in an underground cavern in South Africa, to a party on an Athenian hill in Greece. The day was even celebrated in Nigeria, a country not often associated with piping.

Here is what we set out to do:

Continuing on from the success of the first ever International Bagpipe Day in 2012, March 10th was chosen to be a day to celebrate the world’s bagpipes and piping traditions. With over 130 different kinds of bagpipe played worldwide, we invited pipers everywhere to organise local events – talks, lectures, school visits, museum events, pipers’ picnics, concerts, gigs, ceilidhs and folk bals.

We also planned the Great Bagpipe Convergence. We invited everyone to go out on March 10th at noon local time, play their pipes, and then post a photo or video on our facebook page page.

To avoid “date drift” and potential clashes with other events, we have decided to stick to March 10th as International Bagpipe Day, irrespective of the day of the week, with events being organised on or around that date.

International Bagpipe Conference

Read about the International Bagpipe Conference.

2012 saw events across Britain and as far afield as Seattle and Athens, but our flagship event was an International Bagpipe Conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, organised by Cassandre Balbar.

Audio recordings of the talks are available as podcasts on SOAS Radio.

The third conference took place on 26th to 28th February 2016. Details here.

BBC Breakfast: watch the BBC TV coverage here

BBC Radio 5 Live’s ‘Double Take’ Cassandre Balosso-Bardin. Listen here, article starts at 1:26:00

The Scotsman: a lively article from the Scottish perspective.

YouTube clip of the Boha being demonstrated during one of the talks.