Ventura County Fairgrounds recently transformed into a Scottish village for the 22nd annual Seaside Highland Games at Seaside Park. The event, in its 22nd year, drew crowds for a weekend of caber tossing, bagpiping, and opportunities to explore clan genealogy, creating an immersive, family-friendly celebration of Scottish heritage through Sunday.
Three live entertainment stages kept the festival grounds buzzing with performances. According to the New York Post, Saturday’s lineup included Celtic rock and folk bands. The festival weekend began Friday evening with a Scottish Evening Gala featuring a premium whisky tasting and buffet dinner.
The heavy athletics competitions, a core attraction, anchored the weekend’s programming. These events, including the caber toss and hammer throw, are sanctioned by the Scottish American Athletic Association (SAAA). The association oversees nine traditional heavy events across multiple age, gender, and skill divisions at the games, the SAAA stated. Last year, the association introduced the Lowry Cup, a team competition designed specifically to honor the festival's late founder, John Lowry.
The caber toss remains the festival’s signature spectacle and operates under rules unlike standard track-and-field throwing events, according to Wikipedia. Competitors flip a 16-to-20-foot tapered log end-over-end so its top falls directly away from the thrower in an ideal 12 o’clock alignment; judges deduct points for deviation from that line. The sport’s roots trace back nearly 1,000 years to 11th-century King Malcolm III, who organized athletic gatherings to identify strong warriors for his royal court, according to Scottish Fest USA.
Beyond the feats of strength, the games featured judged highland dancing, bagpiping, and drumming contests. Clan genealogy tents, run by societies such as Clans Munro, Gunn, and Innis of North America, gave visitors a chance to research their 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 listed a Harp Glen and a World War II military encampment among its attractions.
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.
Seaside Park, the event’s oceanfront location, sits on land originally donated to the public by Eugene P. and Orpha Foster and 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, with its coastal setting bringing ocean breezes and October weather to the games.
Venue security at the Ventura County Fairgrounds has also evolved in recent years. The fairgrounds overhauled its security protocols after an August 2022 inside burglary in which over $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.
While Seaside Highland Games is Southern California’s premier Scottish festival, it is one reflection of an active Scottish cultural tradition in California. 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 will mark its 160th anniversary in November 2026 and draws more than 30,000 spectators over Labor Day weekend, according to the Tri City Voice.
