The Highland Council has announced details of the programme for this summers City of Inverness Highland Games which has been expanded to include evening musical events, the first ever City of Inverness Pipe Band Competition and a 10K Trail Race.

The Games will take place in Bught Park in Inverness on Saturday 23 July 2005 (11am – 6pm). Admission is £5 for adults, £1 for concessions. Admission is free for all kilt wearers.

The Highland Games Committee have also announced that they have received confirmation that they have succeeded in an ambitious bid to bring the World Highland Games Heavy Events Championships to the City as part of the Year of Highland Culture Celebrations in July 2007.

Founded in 1973, the World Heavy Events Championships have been held in Australia, Canada, USA, Nigeria, Finland and New Zealand in recent years but were last held in Scotland back in 1995 when they were staged in Kilmarnock. Entry to the Championships is by invitation only which is made by the Federation to the top athletes competing in each of the main Highland Games circuits around the world. Currently the main Highland Games circuits are based in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany and here in Scotland. It is known that bids to host the 2007 Games were submitted from a number of countries and securing the Games is a major coup for Inverness.

The decision by the Highland Games Committee to introduce the first ever Tulloch’s City of Inverness Pipe Band Competition into this year’s Games programme has already resulted in another major plus for the City before a note has been played.

When officials from the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association travelled to Inverness to discuss the Inverness Games event they quickly decided that Bught Park would be an ideal venue in which to house a major Pipe Band Championship.

Upon discovering that bids were being invited from cities interested in hosting the 2007 European Pipe Band Championships, the Games Committee seized the opportunity to submit a successful bid in conjunction with the Year of Highland Culture team.

The North of Scotland has suffered in recent years from a lack of Pipe Band Competitions and a good turn out is expected from bands wishing to have a final practice in the week before the British Pipe Band Championships in Tain.

The introduction of the Pipe Band Competition at the Games is not the only change that will make this year’s Games one of the most musical ever seen in the Highlands.

This year’s Games programme has been expanded to include musical events in the giant Tulloch’s Clan Village marquee and across in Inverness Ice Centre’s Downtown USA facility. The Clan Village Marquee will be home during the day to Scotland’s biggest Clan Gathering in 2005 (35 Clans and Clan Societies have already registered to attend the event) and in the evening will be used to create a festival feel around the Games site.

Hootanannays in Inverness will be organising the two musical events that will be staged in the Clan Village Marquee on the eve and night of the Games. Details of the acts that are to appear will be finalised in the next few weeks but it is known that Hootanannays are planning to showcase current Highland Music by offering a mix of contemporary and traditional music.

Also on the eve of the Games, the members of the Inverness Youth Forum are staging an event for younger teenagers which will feature some of the younger bands that are emerging on the local scene in Inverness Ice Centre’s Downtown USA. Recent concerns regarding the lack of opportunities for young bands to perform live inspired the members of the Inverness Youth Forum to look for ways to help and it is hoped to establish the both the Youth Forum event and the Hootanannay’s events as part of the Games programme.

As well as a full programme of solo piping organised by the Inverness Piping Society, spectators will be able to enjoy one of the largest highland dancing competitions staged in the Highland this summer at the Games. Former Moray Forth Radio star Andy Ross will once again present an afternoon of Highland Traditional music and dance in the Tulloch’s Traditional Music tent to mark the opening of this year’s Caledonian Canal Celidh Trail.

Entries forms for the Games are now being distributed amongst the athletics clubs in the area and it is hoped that Inverness will continue to attract athletes from all across the North to the Bught. Middle distance runners and runners training for the Loch Ness Marathon will be interested to learn that they will have the opportunity to take part in a unique event at the end of the Highland Games.

Nova International, the company that organises some of the biggest athletics events staged in Britain such as The Great North Run, will be staging an International Triathlon themed team event, the VisitScotland Adventure Tri Loch Ness.

The event will be contested by teams of male and female international standard tri-athletes who will be competing in three sections, a swimming event in Loch Ness, a mountain bike event above Drumnadrochit and a 10K Trail Run in Inverness which will be the subject of 6 half hour TV programmes.

The 10K Trail Run will start at Queens Park and follow a course around Highland Rugby Club and Torvean Golf Club and Quarry before finishing alongside the Canal.

The 10K Trail Run is open to all local athletes and fun runners and anyone interested in taking part is asked to email info@greatrun.org or telephone 0191 2727033.

Games Committee Chairman Councillor Angus Dick added “ The programme for the 2005 Games is one of the most exciting that we have put together and we are really looking forward to it. We are delighted to have helped secure the World Heavy Championships and the European Pipe Band Championship in 2007 and I would especially like to thank our Games Secretary Gerry Reynolds and the Director of the Year of Highland Culture 2007 Fiona Hampton for preparing the bids. It is very exciting to think that the people of the Highlands and visitors from all over the world will have the opportunity to see some of the best Heavies and Pipe Bands in the world in action in Inverness in the space of a single week.”