EVANSTON — The 17th annual Celtic Festival drew huge crowds for a total attendance of 2,350 for the weekend of March 21-22. According to festival managers, approximately 130 volunteers worked on the planning and execution of the festival and put in more than 650 volunteer hours to make the Celtic Festival a success.

Headline entertainment, live music, historical lectures and demonstration, hands-on workshops, vendors with folk arts and crafts, children’s games and activities, multiple vendors with traditional Celtic food and a pub awaited those who attended the festival.

During a music break, Diane Sellers, president of The Arts Inc. board of directors took the opportunity to honor retiring Celtic Festival event managers Shasta Smith-Hopkin and Eric Pasenelli, who stood at the front of the stage as Sellers made the announcement.

“Life-time friends, Eric Pasenelli and Shasta Smith-Hopkin started volunteering with the organization while still in high school and, for nearly 20 years, they have both been a driving force behind The Arts Inc., dedicating their time, energy and passion to nurturing the arts in our community,” Sellers said. “In recognition of their incredible contributions, we are proud to name the Smith-Pasenelli Scholarship in their honor. This scholarship will provide financial assistance for qualified, outstanding high school students who wish to attend The Arts Inc. Music, Arts and Theatre (MAT) Camp ensuring more young artists have the opportunity to learn, grow and create. Our hope is that this will inspire local youth to follow in Shasta’s and Eric’s footsteps by promoting the arts broadly and enriching the lives of others.”

Smith-Hopkin and Pasenelli received loud applause from the audience.

Throughout both days of the festival, music filled the Machine Shop as regional and headlining bands took the stage to entertain crowds. Regional bands included the Salt Lake Scots Pipe Band, Avourneen, Cronin’s Fancy, Teton Skye and Finistere.

The Machine Shop was filled with vendors offering a variety of traditional products and others offering a variety of food choices. A beer bar was available, with local police officers checking IDs.

A choice of six demonstrations and lectures were offered on Friday, including the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) members demonstrating medieval fighting with swords and other weapons; lectures on medieval weapons, pub songs and Scottish pipe tunes.    

On Saturday, SCA again provided medieval fighting demonstrations for crowds. People could choose from eight different lectures and workshops including learning Gaelic language, songs, stories and the history of medieval weapons.

The local Warped and Twisted Fiber Guild provided a choice of two demonstration workshops; one on “waulking the wool” and another one titled “from fiber to yarn.” The waulking workshop featured special guest Ellen McDonald from the headline band Daimh, who explained the process of waulking and the songs that women would sing as they worked. Waulking is a term for pounding the woven wool until it becomes more like fabric.

McDonald had those attending the workshop sit around a long table, holding the woven wool in their hands and pounding it on the table as they slowly moved it along, while she sang Gaelic songs and taught them to sing the chorus along with her.

The Celtic Festival is a family-friendly event and children of all ages could enjoy renaissance games sponsored by the Utah Renaissance Faire; choose from a variety of opportunities to make crafts; and dance and learn Celtic music.

For a minimal fee, adults and children 12 and older could attend a workshop in the visitors center to learn the art of pyrography (artistic wood burning) and take home a finished product.

Friday night’s headline band, Daimh (pronounced “dive”) from the Isle of Skye and West Lochaber drew a crowd of 320 fans. On Saturday night, a double headline concert with Heron Valley from Scotland and Old Blind Dogs, a multi-award-winning band who sing Scottish folk music, was joined by fiddler Sarah Collins. A crowd of 375 fans clapped, danced and cheered until 10 p.m.

On both Friday and Saturday nights, for those people who wanted to keep celebrating, the Best Western Dunmar Inn held an after-hours session until midnight. Anyone could bring their own instrument and play along with the regional band Avourneen.

Smith-Hopkin said, “This year we were incredibly fortunate to receive funding from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund and Rocky Mountain Power Foundation to activate one of our dormant programs, Specialists in the Schools Project (SISP), last active prior to COVID. The purpose of SISP is to send some of our visiting professional artists through local schools while we have them in the area for one of our other events, which in this case was the Celtic Festival.”

Smith-Hopkin reported that over the course of three days leading up to the festival, members of Scottish headline bands Daimh and Heron Valley visited with students in all four of the Evanston elementary schools to play tunes and talk about their instruments and Scottish music and culture. They met with the students in small-group classroom settings in order to allow maximum interaction and answer the students’ questions in a personalized way.

The artists also gave two workshops for homeschool families in the community to allow those students the same opportunities as their public school counterparts.

“Band members all said they absolutely enjoyed getting to know our local elementary music teachers and students in our community,” Smith-Hopkin said. “We are also hiring a new event manager to join the Celtic Festival team.” Those interested in receiving more information are encouraged to contact the board via email at ContactTheArtsInc@gmail.com or by phone at 307-677-2707.