What are the Phoenix Scottish Games?
The Phoenix Scottish Games, also billed as the Arizona Scottish Gathering and Highland Games, are the state’s Highland games: a weekend of heavy athletics, pipe bands, Highland dancing, clan tents, whisky and meat pies run by the Caledonian Society of Arizona, which describes itself as the largest Celtic organization in the state. Members of the Phoenix Scottish Pipe Band staged the first games in 1964, and the society, heir to a Scottish Society of Arizona formed on September 26, 1953, has run them since, at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix through 2020 and, from 2022, at Gilbert Regional Park, 3005 E. Queen Creek Road in south Gilbert.
The 2027 dates had not been announced as of October 2026, and the recent record is bumpy. The 59th games ran March 1–3, 2024. The society then cancelled the 2025 games, which it had planned to move to the West Valley Events Complex in Glendale, citing rising costs, higher up-front fees and falling ticket sales, and promised a 60th games in 2026; a clan calendar updated in March 2026 still listed the Phoenix games as to be announced, the society’s website was offline when this guide was checked, and no local coverage of a 2026 games surfaced. A Celtic events calendar lists the games for February or March 2027 at Gilbert Regional Park without dates. Treat the games as a first-weekend-of-March event and confirm before driving.
For a Scottsdale visitor it is 35 minutes down the 101 and the 202 Santan, and when it runs it is the best Highland games between Southern California and Texas, in a park that is worth the trip on its own in a crowded March.
How to do it
Tickets. From 2022 to 2024 a single day was $25 at the gate or online, a Saturday-and-Sunday pass $40, and VIP $150, with discounts for military and children; in 2020 children 5 and under were free. Whisky-tasting sessions have been limited and sold separately, and they go early. Expect 2027 prices to be posted with the dates, and expect them to be higher: the society said plainly that the 2024 games lost money on attendance and spending.
The schedule. The pattern since 2022 has been Friday evening, 5 to 9 p.m., for the Phoenix International Twilight Tattoo in the park’s amphitheater, massed pipes and drums with a guest band (the Ingersoll Pipe Band from Ontario in 2024), military and regimental bands, Highland dancers and a closing concert from a Celtic rock act such as the Wicked Tinkers. Saturday runs about 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Sunday 9 to 5, opening each day with the massed bands and the calling of the clans.
Getting there and parking. Take the Loop 101 south to the Loop 202 Santan east, exit Higley Road and go south to Queen Creek Road; allow 35 minutes without traffic and 50 on a Saturday. Parking in the park’s lots is free. The Queen Creek Road entrance backs up by 10 a.m.; the Higley side moves.
What to watch. The heavy athletics field is the center of the day: caber toss, sheaf toss with a pitchfork, Braemar stone put, the Scottish hammer on its PVC shaft, and the weight for distance and weight over bar, in men’s and women’s classes grouped by age and experience, with professionals from across North America in the open division. The Desert Southwest Pipe Band championship and the Highland dance championship run on their own grounds all day. Thirty to thirty-five clan tents line the main avenue with genealogists who will find your surname’s tartan whether or not you have one; the 2022 games’ first-time competitors included a man who admitted he had no Scottish in him at all.
Eat and drink. Meat pies, fish and chips, shortbread and Highland beef from the Celtic Village; Four Peaks or Guinness beer gardens; a Scotch whisky tent with guided tastings and a Scotch-and-chocolate pairing; a cigar lounge in 2024. Bring a chair and a blanket for the amphitheater sets, sunscreen for the field, and dogs if you like, since the canine kilt contest is a fixture. Afterward, the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch is ten minutes north and the Gilbert Heritage District has dinner.
Sixty years of pipers
The Phoenix games are among the older Highland games in the West. The Scottish Society of Arizona organized in September 1953; the first games, in 1964, were the work of the Phoenix Scottish Pipe Band’s members, who wanted a field to compete on, and the band was still on the field at the 2022 games. The Caledonian Society grew around the games and around the pipe bands, dancers and heavy athletes it funds: proceeds go to scholarships for Highland athletes, musicians and dancers and to other groups promoting Scottish heritage. By 2020 the games were at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix, where the 56th edition was held on March 7–8, 2020, one of the last Valley events before the pandemic; there were no games in 2021.
The 57th games in March 2022 opened Gilbert Regional Park as the new home, a park with an amphitheater, big lawns and free parking that the Phoenix sites could not match. About 30 clans set up tents, the Twilight Tattoo featured four bands, and Cronkite News found athletes grateful to “finally have a field to practice and play on.” The 2023 and 2024 games followed on the first weekend of March, and in 2024 co-athletic director Heather MacDonald said it was the first year men and women received equal prize money at the Phoenix games, “as far as I know.”
The 2025 cancellation
Then the money ran out. In early 2025 the society’s board announced it was postponing the 60th anniversary games, which it had planned to move to February at the West Valley Events Complex in Glendale, citing current financial obligations, the rising cost of staging the games, a significant increase in funds due before opening, lower ticket sales across the board and thinning member resources. The 2024 games, the society said, had drawn fewer people who spent less, while costs went up; 2025 would be a rebuilding year of fundraising, sponsorship and membership drives, with a return promised for 2026. Attendees on the society’s Facebook page mostly wanted one thing: bring it back to Gilbert Regional Park. Whether the 60th games happened in 2026 is not clear from the public record this guide could find, which is why the dates above are unannounced rather than guessed.
Why it belongs on a Scottsdale calendar
Scottsdale has rodeos and horse shows for its Western heritage and nothing for its Celtic one, apart from the bars on St. Patrick’s Day. The Scottish Games are the Valley’s only full Highland games, and the drive to Gilbert is shorter than it sounds. They fall two weeks before the Fountain Hills St. Patrick’s Day greening of the fountain, which makes March the month for anyone whose grandparents came from the North Atlantic. Watch for the society’s announcement, buy the weekend pass if it comes, and go on Saturday morning when the massed bands walk onto the field; it is the sound that has brought people to a Phoenix park every spring since 1964, and it deserves a crowd on its return.