Las Vegas Highland Games 2026

[OC Richard]

They're this weekend (18 and 19 April) and the weather should be gorgeous.

There are fewer pipe bands than usual, the reason being that the NorCal Celtic Festival (in Woodland) was just last weekend, and several bands usually seen in Vegas decided to attend Woodland instead.

They need to spread these two Games apart a bit.

I'll be there Saturday as an attendee. (My band was one of the ones who usually attends Vegas but chose Woodland this year.)

[OC Richard]

I met jsrnephdoc in person! We had a great chat and listened to the pipe bands.



This guy had a wardrobe malfunction

[YOJiMBO20]

He’s a drummer Richard, you can’t expect too much from him.

[User]

You both look smashing! Las Vegas is close enough to me for road trips. But my wife would kill me if I attended Highland games there. She wants every second in Vegas to be spent at the strip.

[jsrnephdoc]

You both look smashing! Las Vegas is close enough to me for road trips. But my wife would kill me if I attended Highland games there. She wants every second in Vegas to be spent at the strip.

Ouch! We moved here less than a year ago. Our Realtor (my wife's daughter) did at least ONE thing right. She made sure that even though we have a Las Vegas mailing address, we're just about as far removed from that infernal "strip" as possible but still technically BE in Las Vegas. Just a few miles away there are nice mountain meadows with wild horses wandering in them, mountains tall enough to host decent winter sports activities, and nice paved bicycle paths. And it's true that there are nice restaurants on "the strip," but I avoid it as much as humanly possible.

And, I learned Saturday that OC Richard's fund of knowledge regarding piping and tartan is as impressive as it appears in print!

It was my first time in the enormous park where the games were held (at the same time as some other gatherings). My son and I left our car in a small lot, wandered quite a ways honing in on the sounds of solo pipers, but at the end of the day there were no such sonic guideposts to get us back to the car. An HOUR to find it!

[User]

... we're just about as far removed from that infernal "strip" as possible but still technically BE in Las Vegas. ...

Love makes me do crazy things. Like when I married a woman who enjoys crowds, noise, and displays of opulence.
Opposites attract, I suppose.

[OC Richard]

Las Vegas is close enough to me for road trips. But my wife would kill me if I attended Highland games there. She wants every second in Vegas to be spent at the strip.

My wife loves Vegas, loves The Strip, loves gambling. I dislike all that stuff.

I love going to Highland Games. You couldn't drag my wife to one.

So for the Vegas Highland Games my wife will get a nice room at The Venetian comped.

Saturday and Sunday we'll have breakfast together and go our separate ways until dinner.

We've done this for many years, but this year she hit a snag: she couldn't get a room comped anywhere. Even her concierge guy couldn't do anything. We wondered why until we found out that there was some big wrestling event going on that weekend. So for the first time in ages I drove out to Vegas solo.

[OC Richard]

He’s a drummer Richard, you can’t expect too much from him.

I suspected as much.

I generally see pipers wearing their kilts more or less properly and drummers wearing their kilts low.

Why this is, who can say.

[User]

...
We've done this for many years, but this year she hit a snag: she couldn't get a room comped anywhere. Even her concierge guy couldn't do anything. We wondered why until we found out that there was some big wrestling event going on that weekend.
...

Hah! I took the family to Las Vegas last November because my mother in law was visiting and she wanted to go. The rooms were expensive, and it seemed half of the roads were closed. Turns out I ignorantly took us during some racing event on the strip. After that, I swore I would always check for events in Vegas before planning a trip, so I can avoid crowds from events I'm not attending!

[jsrnephdoc]

Hah! I took the family to Las Vegas last November because my mother in law was visiting and she wanted to go. The rooms were expensive, and it seemed half of the roads were closed. Turns out I ignorantly took us during some racing event on the strip. After that, I swore I would always check for events in Vegas before planning a trip, so I can avoid crowds from events I'm not attending!

In many ways, 'Vegas" is two (or maybe more) VERY different places. And, even within "genotypes," the variations can be enormous.

For example, the "Resort" Casinos: No matter WHAT hotel you stay in, you'll need to walk THROUGH the Casino to reach restaurants and shops (sort of the same technique grocery stores use when they put the stuff you NEED (meat, cheese, dairy) in back, so they can hook you into buying what THEY want to sell you before you get there. But some Casinos are populated by barely clothed people who can't take time away from the slots to wash themselves or their clothing (and where most of them seem never to be away from their latest cigaret, whereas at the "high end" hotels such as the Wynn or Bellagio at least the typical person you'll see has some sense of fashion and cleanliness. Still, even there you'll find housewives attired as daringly as are the many "ladies of the night," but at least their clothing (such as it is) will be expensive.

Las Vegas has MARVELOUS highways. They're always updating them, too, which can mean traffic problems. But I suspect that your visit collided with the Formula 1 auto race. F1 is THE most expensive form of sport in the UNIVERSE. Except for the most rabid of fans, no one would attempt to go anywhere NEAR the "Strip" during race weekend. An example of the "no expense is too extravagant" attitude: (I don't know if this is still true, but I"m sure some variant of it is): Race weekends—almost EVERY weekend during the season—may follow each other on different continents. Teams may be limited by the total WEIGHT of equipment they can bring to a race. So, the top teams have their shop tools fabricated from titanium. Another: two decades ago, on a bike trip to France, my time coincided with the Grand Prix de Monaco. I assumed I could find a low budget way to attend. Even then, two nights in Monaco for race weekend (or even two nights over the Italian border) would have been WELL above $10,000. It's not THAT extreme for the race in 'Vegas, but it's almost impossible to get a hotel that has views of the temporary racetrack and impossible to navigate "the Strip" then.

Oh, about those marvelous roads. It seems to me that there's SO much money harvested from addicted gamblers that they need spare no expense when updating them. That may include freeway-quality bicycle paths using more concrete and rock "borrowed" from nearby mountains than used by the entire state of Montana, but the roads are still congested because NO ONE obeys the 65 mph speed limits, and you won't pass ANYONE on those freeways until your own speed exceeds 75-80 mph, even IN the posted-reduced speed construction zones. Occasionally the city will deploy perhaps a half dozen motorcycle policemen on one of the freeways, and if you use fishing as a metaphor, it takes them just MINUTES to catch their limits.

Then there are the residential areas. They're typically TOTALLY separated from ALL commercial enterprises, with criss-crossing arterial streets offering four lanes for traffic in each direction, separated from each other at remarkable constant 0.5 mile intervals. But, if you live in one of the gated communities (as most retiree or moderately successful workforce people do), you'll NEVER be able to walk to a restaurant, grocery store, or some retail establishment.

And, the games. This was my first time. OCR can offer much more educated comments than I, but I enjoyed the bands. The shopping tents mostly suggested that there were no Red-Faire events on the same weekend, but a few offered bins loaded with ex-hire kilts in MANY different tartans.

And as for getting "comped" hotel rooms, I don't know how that happens. I used to come here for medical meetings. Early in my years of practice spouses were welcome, with the sponsor of the meetings paying pretty much for everything, but now typically spouses or guests are verboten so as not to suggest illegal inducements.

We sometimes go to the Wynn for brunch, but even THERE, the restaurants are uneven. I had perhaps THE most mediocre Italian dinner I've ever suffered through at one of its very expensive restaurants. But there are places where families can enjoy themselves (for example, the Mandalay Bay, where the "pools" are enormous, AND there's a quite nice aquarium, and some of the museums are actually good.