Forty-six years of Scotfest. Nearly twenty years of my life. And then, eventually, the last notes faded.
Steve Campbell
Chairman & Former Executive Director
Part Six of The Final Chapter — stories, memories and reflections from nearly twenty years behind Scotfest.
By Steve Campbell, Chairman and Former Executive Director
At some point on Sunday evening, September 20, the last notes of the last Scotfest will fade away.
I know that much.
I know the vendors will begin packing.
I know trucks will start moving.
I know tents will come down.
I know signs will disappear.
I know someone will still be looking for a missing radio, an extension cord or some piece of equipment that absolutely nobody remembers moving.
I know we will start tearing apart the temporary city we spent months building.
I know that eventually the field will become quiet again.
What I don't know is what any of that is actually going to feel like.
For almost twenty years, there has always been another Scotfest.
Another September.
Another site plan.
Another budget.
Another argument.
Another ridiculous idea.
Another chance to fix whatever annoyed us this year.
Another opportunity to say:
"Next year…"
This time there isn't one.
And I'm still learning how to process that.
We have planned something special for the final moments.
As Celtica plays the last few songs of the final Scotfest, we hope to bring together different parts of the festival — pipers, dancers, athletes and others who represent what Scotfest has become over forty-six years.
For most of the weekend, those groups exist in their own worlds.
The athletes have their field.
The dancers have theirs.
The pipers compete and perform.
Bands take the stages.
Clans tell their stories.
Vendors sell.
Volunteers run around trying to keep all of it functioning.
But for those last few songs, the idea is to bring some of it together.
Not individual departments.
Not separate programs.
Scotfest. One final time.
I have spent years producing moments for other people.
I suspect that one may be ours.
People have asked whether I think I'll cry.
Probably.
Maybe not immediately.
I may be too busy.
Somebody may need me.
Something may break.
A vehicle may be in the wrong place.
A vendor may need an answer.
Someone may choose the exact moment the final pipes are playing to ask me where they should return a golf cart.
That would actually be an extremely appropriate ending.
I may feel sadness.
Relief.
Pride.
Exhaustion.
Gratitude.
Probably all of them at different times.
What I suspect is that the full weight of it may not arrive until later.
Perhaps Sunday night.
Perhaps Monday morning.
Perhaps somewhere on the seventeen-hour drive back to Virginia.
There is a strange difference between knowing intellectually that something is ending and actually experiencing the first moment when it is gone.
I am not there yet.
Sunday will still be loud.
There will still be people.
Music.
Radios.
Vehicles.
Volunteers.
Equipment.
Questions.
Problems.
Work.
Monday will be different.
If things go the way they usually do, the field will begin returning to what it was before us.
Empty.
Quiet.
For years, I have watched that transformation knowing we would eventually come back and build it again.
This time, when I walk through the site after teardown, I'll know we won't.
I think I'll probably take a walk.
Alone, if I can.
Look at the places where the stages were.
Where the athletes competed.
Where the clans gathered.
Where the crowds stood.
Where the bars were.
Where thousands of people had been only hours earlier.
There is something very strange about standing in an empty field and still being able to see everything that is no longer there.
I suspect that may be the moment it truly hits me.
That is not entirely a philosophical question.
We have equipment.
Tables.
Signs.
Tools.
Banners.
Supplies.
Storage.
Years of accumulated festival stuff.
Some of it has obvious value.
Some of it probably should have been thrown away fifteen years ago.
Some of it means something only because of the stories attached to it.
A table isn't always just a table when you remember who built it.
A banner isn't just fabric when you remember the year it hung.
A box of old programs is not particularly valuable until you start recognizing names.
Photographs become more important because you suddenly realize how many people have grown older.
Some moved away.
Some are no longer with us.
Some became friends.
Some became family.
Closing a festival is partly an administrative exercise.
Closing a forty-six-year history is considerably more complicated.
We'll work through it the same way we worked through everything else.
One problem at a time.
One decision at a time.
One spreadsheet at a time.
Apparently there are always spreadsheets.
I have thought about this a lot.
Particularly because there is a temptation to look at something ending and assume that means it failed.
I don't believe that.
Scotfest lasted forty-six years.
Forty-six years of people volunteering.
Forty-six years of Scottish music in Oklahoma.
Forty-six years of athletes.
Pipers.
Dancers.
Clans.
Bands.
Vendors.
Sponsors.
Families.
Children becoming adults and bringing children of their own.
Organizations don't need to exist forever to matter.
Traditions do not become meaningless simply because eventually they end.
Sometimes success is measured by what happened while something existed.
By that standard, Scotfest succeeded beyond anything I could have imagined when I first became involved.
That perspective matters to me.
Because Scotfest very nearly ended nineteen years earlier.
When I volunteered in July 2007, the event was close to cancellation.
It was carrying significant debt relative to its annual budget.
Very little had been done with only a couple of months remaining.
I became Treasurer because I believed walking away from what we owed was wrong and because I thought we could turn the event around.
I expected to help for a couple of months.
A few months later, while I was working in India, I discovered people back in Tulsa had decided I should become Executive Director.
Apparently nobody had thought it necessary to involve me extensively in that particular career discussion.
And somehow, from that strange beginning, almost twenty years followed.
My first full year in charge brought the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
A few years later, I was building the World's Largest Kilt in my house.
We grew.
We moved venues.
We expanded.
We brought in performers I never imagined we would host.
We welcomed crowds numbering in the tens of thousands.
We survived financial problems.
We survived COVID.
We restarted.
We struggled.
We made mistakes.
We solved problems.
We argued.
We laughed.
We kept going.
When I look at it that way, I don't see a festival that is simply ending.
I see nineteen years we very nearly never had.
I cannot finish this series without acknowledging some of them.
There are far too many people to name everyone individually.
But there are a few whose stories are inseparable from mine.
Eric had already been part of Scotfest for decades when I arrived.
He has held more roles than I could probably list accurately.
Deputy Executive Director doesn't begin to describe the institutional knowledge, commitment and sheer stubbornness he has brought to this event.
At around three o'clock in the morning after my first Scotfest, I clipped a curb on the way home and blew out two tires.
I had only known Eric for a few months.
I called him.
He came.
The next year, with Hurricane Ike approaching, we had one of the biggest arguments I can remember.
He wanted the festival closed immediately.
I needed time to make the decision.
We were both stressed.
Both exhausted.
Both convinced we were trying to protect the same thing.
I ultimately made the decision to shut the event down.
The storm hit hard.
The following morning we were back onsite together cleaning up the damage.
At some point one of us essentially asked:
"Are we good?"
Of course we were.
We have been best friends ever since.
There is probably nobody who better demonstrates one of the lessons Scotfest taught me:
You do not have to agree with somebody all the time to trust them completely.
Eric, I hope when those last notes play, you're standing somewhere nearby.
And if we argue before then, I assume we'll still be good.
This is more complicated.
But complicated doesn't mean it shouldn't be said.
Aleah encouraged me when I first became involved with Scotfest.
Neither of us could possibly have understood what that decision would eventually mean.
Scotfest became part of our marriage.
Sometimes in wonderful ways.
Sometimes in destructive ones.
When Aleah and I worked well together at Scotfest, we were a formidable team.
We really were.
We also allowed the event, among other things, to take up far too much space in our lives.
Our marriage eventually ended.
The divorce was painful.
There was anger.
Bitterness.
Mistakes.
Years where neither of us particularly wanted to give the other much credit for anything.
Time changes perspective.
Today, we are friends.
We raised an incredible son together.
We can talk.
Laugh.
Remember the good without having to pretend the bad never happened.
And when I look back at Scotfest, I don't want to erase Aleah's contribution simply because our marriage ended.
She contributed to the years when we were building it.
She supported things.
She worked.
She dealt with the consequences of having Scotfest invade our home, our evenings and far too much of our family life.
So whether she is still onsite when the final notes play or has sensibly gone home by then, I want this written down:
Thank you, Aleah.
For what you contributed.
And for what you tolerated.
Roan was about six months old when this whole ridiculous journey began.
He has never really known life without Scotfest somewhere in the background.
Festival equipment in the house.
Boxes in the garage.
Meetings.
Bands.
Athletes.
Volunteers.
Community leaders.
People his parents somehow knew.
He volunteered as he got older.
People within Scotfest watched him grow up.
And now he is an adult.
That fact may be the clearest measure of how much time has actually passed.
I have regrets.
There were vacations we didn't take.
Family time that got postponed.
Things I convinced myself could happen later.
One of the hardest lessons of growing older is discovering that "later" has an expiration date.
You can produce another event.
You cannot make your child six years old again.
But Scotfest also gave Roan experiences few children have.
He grew up around remarkable people.
He saw something being built.
He saw his parents create things.
He also saw the price that can come with allowing work and responsibility to consume too much of your life.
Perhaps he learned something from both.
Roan will be there this final year helping wherever I need him.
I suspect he will also be quite happy when it is over.
I can hardly blame him.
Roan, thank you for sharing your childhood with Scotfest. And thank you for sharing your dad with it too.
There are too many of you to name.
People who arrived before sunrise.
People who stayed after midnight.
People who drove equipment.
Moved tables.
Built things.
Fixed things.
Checked gates.
Pulled beer.
Picked up rubbish.
Cleaned toilets.
Marked fields.
Helped athletes.
Hosted performers.
Answered radios.
Managed clans.
Worked whisky tastings.
Directed traffic.
Parked cars.
Loaded trucks.
Unloaded trucks.
And did thousands of jobs that nobody attending ever knew existed.
Those people built Scotfest.
Not one Executive Director.
Not one Chairman.
Not one Board.
People.
If you ever volunteered for Scotfest for forty years, four years, four weekends or four hours:
Thank you.
You built it too.
That may sound strange.
But events do not exist because organizers create infrastructure.
They exist because people turn up.
Every ticket purchased told us the event mattered.
Every family walking through the gate gave volunteers a reason to have built it.
Every crowded stage gave a performer an audience.
Every purchase supported a vendor.
Every person at the Highland Games gave the athletes somebody to compete in front of.
Every visit to a clan tent helped keep history alive.
Every child hearing bagpipes for the first time gave the culture another chance to travel forward.
You were never simply the audience.
You were part of Scotfest.
Thank you.
Sponsors.
Municipal partners.
Police.
Fire.
Medical teams.
Contractors.
Venues.
Hotels.
Community organizations.
Businesses.
Media.
People who wrote checks.
People who donated equipment.
People who opened doors.
People who made phone calls.
People who said:
"I know someone who might be able to help."
And, on one memorable occasion, a Fire Chief who responded to a phone call and brought a ladder truck because we couldn't get a giant kilt around the Golden Driller.
Festivals are ecosystems.
No organization creates one alone.
To everyone who took a risk on Scotfest over the years:
Thank you.
There is one thing I hope very strongly for this final weekend.
I want to pay every bill.
That may sound unusually practical in the middle of an emotional farewell.
But it matters to me.
When I became involved in 2007, one of the reasons I stepped forward was because I believed walking away from money Scotfest owed was wrong.
Nineteen years later, that principle hasn't changed.
My goal is not to finish Scotfest with some enormous pile of money.
I want us to produce a final event worthy of forty-six years.
I want people to come.
I want the volunteers to be proud.
I want the final moments to mean something.
And then I want us to pay everyone we owe.
If there is a little left over to give us breathing room while we deal with equipment, storage and the final administrative work, even better.
Finishing well matters. Perhaps more than people realize.
There is still Burns Night in January.
There are still decisions to make about the organization.
Equipment.
Storage.
Records.
Assets.
History.
What gets kept.
What gets sold.
What gets donated.
What deserves preserving.
So the last song at Scotfest will not mean every responsibility instantly disappears.
Unfortunately.
I am apparently not allowed to throw the keys in the air and ride dramatically into the sunset.
There will still be work.
But the festival itself will be finished.
That is the part that feels different.
Yes.
But differently.
I would protect family time more aggressively.
I would delegate sooner.
I would take the vacation.
I would put the phone down.
I would understand earlier that being the person everyone depends on is not always proof that you are leading well.
I would realize that an event will consume every hour you make available to it.
And I would remember that the baby beside me in 2007 was going to grow up whether my work was finished or not.
There are things I regret about Scotfest.
But I do not regret Scotfest.
Because I cannot erase the difficult parts without also erasing what came from them.
Friendships.
Lessons.
Memories.
Pride.
Purpose.
Community.
Roan growing up in this very strange Scottish world.
Eric.
Aleah.
The volunteers.
The World's Largest Kilt.
Hurricane Ike.
The crowds.
The music.
The pipes.
All of it belongs to the same story.
I keep coming back to that.
Not everything that ends has failed.
A marriage can end without every year of it having been meaningless.
A friendship can end without erasing what it once meant.
A tradition can end without losing its value.
And an event can end after forty-six years without forty-six years suddenly becoming a failure.
Sometimes success is simply that something existed.
That people cared.
That it brought people together.
That it created memories.
That it mattered while it was here.
Scotfest mattered.
To thousands of people.
It certainly mattered to me.
At some point Sunday evening, the last pipes will play.
The last song will end.
The last crowd will begin walking away.
And Scotfest will become something it has never been before.
History.
I expect there will be sadness in that.
I also expect relief.
And pride.
And exhaustion.
And probably somebody looking for me because there is still a truck that needs loading.
Eventually, Monday will come.
The field will get quieter.
I'll probably take that walk.
Then, at some point, I'll get into a vehicle and begin the long drive back to Virginia.
Seventeen hours gives a person a lot of time to think.
For almost twenty years, somewhere in the back of my mind there has always been another Scotfest waiting.
Another September.
Another problem.
Another opportunity.
Another year.
This time, somewhere on that drive home, I will realize there isn't one.
I don't know yet whether that realization will feel like grief.
Relief.
Freedom.
Loss.
Or all four.
But I do know what I'll be thinking about.
The people.
The stories.
The mistakes.
The ridiculous ideas.
The arguments.
The friendships.
The things we somehow managed to pull off.
The things we probably shouldn't have been able to pull off.
And the fact that for forty-six years, thousands of people built something together in Oklahoma because they believed Scottish culture, community and a good gathering were worth the effort.
For almost twenty of those years, I was fortunate enough — and occasionally foolish enough — to be one of the people responsible for it.
To everyone who loved it.
To everyone who fought for it.
To everyone who volunteered.
To everyone who performed.
To everyone who competed.
To everyone who sponsored it.
To everyone who worked it.
To everyone who attended.
To everyone who brought their children.
And to everyone who became part of this strange Scottish family in Oklahoma:
Thank you.
For every headache.
Every laugh.
Every friendship.
Every lesson.
Every memory.
Soon the last pipes will fall silent.
And for the first time in almost twenty years, there will be no next Scotfest.
I'm still learning how to feel about that.
But I think I'm finally ready to let it be okay.
I keep coming back to that.
Not everything that ends has failed.
A marriage can end without every year of it having been meaningless.
A friendship can end without erasing what it once meant.
A tradition can end without losing its value.
And an event can end after forty-six years without forty-six years suddenly becoming a failure.
Sometimes success is simply that something existed.
That people cared.
That it brought people together.
That it created memories.
That it mattered while it was here.
Scotfest mattered.
To thousands of people.
It certainly mattered to me.
At some point Sunday evening, the last pipes will play.
The last song will end.
The last crowd will begin walking away.
And Scotfest will become something it has never been before.
History.
I expect there will be sadness in that.
I also expect relief.
And pride.
And exhaustion.
And probably somebody looking for me because there is still a truck that needs loading.
Eventually, Monday will come.
The field will get quieter.
I'll probably take that walk.
Then, at some point, I'll get into a vehicle and begin the long drive back to Virginia.
Seventeen hours gives a person a lot of time to think.
For almost twenty years, somewhere in the back of my mind there has always been another Scotfest waiting.
Another September.
Another problem.
Another opportunity.
Another year.
This time, somewhere on that drive home, I will realize there isn't one.
I don't know yet whether that realization will feel like grief.
Relief.
Freedom.
Loss.
Or all four.
But I do know what I'll be thinking about.
The people.
The stories.
The mistakes.
The ridiculous ideas.
The arguments.
The friendships.
The things we somehow managed to pull off.
The things we probably shouldn't have been able to pull off.
And the fact that for forty-six years, thousands of people built something together in Oklahoma because they believed Scottish culture, community and a good gathering were worth the effort.
For almost twenty of those years, I was fortunate enough — and occasionally foolish enough — to be one of the people responsible for it.
To everyone who loved it.
To everyone who fought for it.
To everyone who argued about it.
To everyone who volunteered.
To everyone who performed.
To everyone who competed.
To everyone who sponsored it.
To everyone who worked it.
To everyone who attended.
To everyone who brought their children.
And to everyone who became part of this strange Scottish family in Oklahoma:
Thank you.
For forty-six years.
For almost twenty years of my own life.
For every headache.
Every laugh.
Every friendship.
Every lesson.
Every memory.
We did this.
And now, for the first time in almost twenty years, there is no next Scotfest.
I think I'm finally ready
to let that be okay.
From the volunteer who ended up running the place, to the World's Largest Kilt, to the costs nobody saw, the farewell — and the silence after.
How one volunteer accidentally ended up running the place — the unglamorous, irreplaceable labor behind forty-six years of community.
READ PART ONE →Hurricane Ike, the picnic table pit crew, a festival that became a temporary city — and all the infrastructure nobody was meant to see.
READ PART TWO →The World's Largest Kilt on the Golden Driller — a sewing machine in Steve's house and a Tulsa Fire Department ladder truck saving the day.
READ PART THREE →The honest face of nearly twenty years of saying "yes" — time, sleep, friendships and moments that can't be reclaimed.
READ PART FOUR →The gates open for the final time. Today, we celebrate forty-six years — and this weekend, we get to enjoy it, one last time.
COMING SOONThe tear-down, the empty field, the people who built it, and learning to let an ending be okay.
COMING SOONSix parts. Twenty years. One strange Scottish family in Oklahoma. Read the story from the beginning, or revisit the farewell.