Kirsty Macnicol
The Southland Times
May 18, 1999

THE City of Invercargill Caledonian Pipe Band, which last year performed in Scotland's Edinburgh Military Tattoo , might make a second guest appearance when the tattoo is staged in New Zealand next year.
The New Zealand International Festival of the Arts has booked the Edinburgh Tattoo for Wellington's WestpacTrust Stadium in March 2000. It will be the first time the tattoo has been performed outside Scotland in its 50-year history.
Costing up to $2.9 million to stage, the tattoo will be the centrepiece of the 2000 festival.
The festival will feature at least 1000 performers, of whom about 300 will come from Britain.
Invercargill band pipe major David Pickett said he received informal
correspondence from tattoo producer and chief executive Brigadier Mel Jameson about two weeks ago.
The letter said he would be looking for 10 New Zealand pipe bands to take part and would be counting on the Invercargill and Dunedin bands, who went to Scotland last year, to be among them.
The tattoo is scheduled to be staged from March 10 to 12, in front of about 17,000 people each night.
Those dates clash with the New Zealand Pipe Band Championshipsbeing held in Masterton, meaning any bands performing in both will have to do some careful time management and a lot of travelling.
"We would really like to do it; the only thing we have to consider is our commitments, re: defending our national title," Mr Pickett said.
"We have to do justice to the defence of our national title and a tattoo performance _ it'll take some careful planning but I'm sure we can organise our programme."
The band had yet to discuss the implications fully before signalling its
availability for the tattoo, Mr Pickett said.