Largs Viking Festival facing funding issues for this year's event
The nine day event will have to reduce some of the shows from previous years
Last updated 19th Jul 2023
Largs' annual Viking Festival is struggling to gather funds to run this year's event.
Some of the spectacles the public have come to expect, including the air show may not be able to go ahead, without more donations.
Festival chair, Duncan Blair says this isn't a problem they've had before, but some of their usual funding from Event Scotland has not been available this year.
He said: “Some of the funding streams that we normally, I suppose rely on is too strong a word, but certainly we would hope for, unfortunately we didn’t get all the money, in fact one area we didn’t get any grants at all which is a disappointment. “
One of the usual streams of funding comes from Event Scotland.
A spokesperson for the organisation said: "We have supported Largs Viking Festival across a number of years through our National event programme.
"Due to the competitive nature of the fund, and the ongoing challenging economic context, we have had to make some difficult decisions in respect of our funding, which means we are unable to support the festival this year.
"We continue to promote the festival across our website and would welcome future eligible applications for consideration under the programme.”
The nine-day festival is organised by a charity, and without additional donations, they're struggling to organise some of the public favourites, including the air display.
Duncan said: “Obviously it’s not absolutely essential in a Viking festival about the Battle of Largs that you’d have an air display, we recognise that, but it is one of the areas where folk do come who maybe have a passing interesting in the history side, but they’d like to come and see an air display.”
People can still look forward to some air show events though, as the flyover is hopefully going ahead.
As well as that, the last Saturday night events with fireworks, the burning of the longship and the battle re-enactment will still be on for people to enjoy.
Duncan hopes people will still be able to enjoy some time in the area, adding: “We recognise that people come to Largs for different reasons, and if it’s a nice sun day they’ll come down anyway, but having other activities on that dovetail and link with the wider community event, that’s the way we look at it- just to have a good day out.”
He added: “We’re a voluntary group, we only survive by the good grace of donations to the festival, what we save for last year gets put forward for next year, but I suppose like any organisation we’ve had difficulty with funding.”
Duncan says the best way to stay up to date with which events are running should keep an eye on their website.