The Ventura County Fairgrounds turned into a Scottish village over the weekend as the 22nd annual Seaside Highland Games returned to Seaside Park, drawing crowds for caber tossing, bagpiping, and clan genealogy booths through Sunday. Three live entertainment stages kept the festival grounds buzzing, and the event transformed the oceanfront fairgrounds into an immersive, family-friendly celebration of Scottish heritage.
According to the New York Post, Saturday's lineup included Celtic rock and folk bands performing on the entertainment stages, part of a festival weekend that began Friday evening with a Scottish Evening Gala featuring a premium whisky tasting and buffet dinner. The heavy athletics competitions, including the caber toss and hammer throw, anchored the weekend's programming alongside judged highland dancing, bagpiping, and drumming contests.
Those heavy athletic events are sanctioned by the Scottish American Athletic Association, which oversees nine traditional heavy events spanning multiple age, gender, and skill divisions at the games, according to the Scottish American Athletic Association. Last year, the association introduced the Lowry Cup, a team competition pitting regional practice groups against each other, created specifically to honor the festival's late founder.
A Festival Built on Family Legacy
The Seaside Highland Games were started by John Lowry and his wife Nellie. John served as Founder and Chief of the Games until his passing in early 2025, per Crawford Lorenzen Mortuary. The festival features attractions such as SAAA-sanctioned heavy athletics, pipe bands, and clan genealogy tents, and has honored its founder.
The caber toss remains the festival's signature spectacle and operates under rules unlike standard track-and-field throwing events. Competitors flip a 16-to-20-foot tapered log end-over-end so that its top falls directly away from the thrower in an ideal 12 o'clock alignment, with judges deducting points for deviation from that line, according to Wikipedia. The sport's roots run deep: Scottish heavy athletics trace back nearly 1,000 years to 11th-century King Malcolm III, who organized athletic gatherings to identify the fastest runners and strongest warriors for his royal court and military, according to Scottish Fest USA.
Bagpipes, Clans, and a Coastal Setting
Bagpiping and drumming competitions were part of the games, per the New York Post's reporting, while information booths run by the Clans Munro, Gunn and Innis societies of North America gave visitors a chance to research their genealogy and heritage. Festival attendee Jeana Weatherland told KEYT News that she and others greet passersby because, as she put it, they are the Hay Clan. The festival website also lists a Harp Glen and a World War II military encampment among its attractions.
Seaside Park sits on oceanfront land originally donated to the public by Eugene P. and Orpha Foster, and the site features an adjacent Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train station on Harbor Boulevard, according to Wikipedia. The property previously housed a minor-league ballpark before developing into today's county fairgrounds. Seaside Park's coastal setting brings ocean breezes and October weather to the games.
Ventura's Place in a Statewide Tradition
While Seaside Highland Games is Southern California’s premier Scottish festival, one of the largest Highland gatherings in the United States is held in Pleasanton by the Caledonian Club of San Francisco, founded in 1866, which marks its 160th anniversary in November 2026 and draws more than 30,000 spectators over Labor Day weekend, according to the Tri City Voice. The Pleasanton gathering and Seaside Highland Games reflect an active Scottish cultural tradition in California.
Venue security has also evolved in recent years. The Ventura County Fairgrounds overhauled its security protocols after an August 2022 inside burglary in which more than $572,000 in fair cash receipts were stolen from an administration building safe, a case that resulted in prison sentences for three co-conspirators, as Hoodline previously reported. The fairgrounds now host the annual Highland games each fall.
