Band off to Canada

Kirsty Macnicol
The Southland Times
January 27, 2001

PIPIN ' Hot , the City of Invercargill Caledonian Pipe Band's annual stage production, will make its international debut in Canada later this year.
President Peter Wards yesterday confirmed the band had accepted an
invitation to stage the show in Vancouver on June 14.
Pipe major David Pickett said this was a huge opportunity for the show which, in the past five years, had sold 17,000 tickets in Southland and Otago.
The pipe band was initially approached to take part in a week-long Bandfest after organisers heard it would be performing at the Nova Scotia International Tattoo in Halifax, on Canada's east coast, from June 28 to July 7.
Connecting flights meant the band had to pass through Vancouver.
When the Bandfest organisers learned about Pipin ' Hot , they asked for i t to be the top billing, Mr Pickett said.
The festival has only been running for about three years and past
centre-stage acts had been the world champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band and Scotland's famous Pipes and Drums of the 1st Battalion The Highlanders.
"It's very exciting. It's something that's Southland born and bred that's come of age," he said.
Pipin ' Hot will be staged in Invercargill from May 16 to 20.
This year's theme of Voyages is fitting for the progress the band has made in the past few years but also representative of the spread of Scottish people and influences.