in a fast paced celebration of music and dance!
The New York Tattoo will showcase some of the finest bands, Highland dancers and Scottish performers in an inspiring 90 minute stage show.
The New York Tattoo will feature Scottish performers
Featuring a cast of over a 100 performers, the event is scheduled to take place between April 4-6th, 2014. The show will provide an exciting new platform for Scotland and for everyone who shares a passion for Scottish music in New York!
The event does not aim to replace the Tartan Day Parade – however, it does aim to give many bands, which pay thousands of pounds to travel to New York, an additional opportunity to perform in a formal indoor setting, with proper lighting and sound.
The New York Tattoo aims to be the first event of its type to secure crowd funding – the collective effort of hundreds of supporters online who pledge a small amount online to make the event happen!
The video for the Kickstarter campaign
The show is being developed by Magnus Orr, a piper from Edinburgh, Scotland, who helped produce the first and biggest New York Tartan Parade in 2002, when thousands of pipers and drummers led by Sir Sean Connery marched along 6th Avenue.
Magnus Orr
Every year – a call for a tattoo
Magnus Orr, said that crowdsourcing, using sites such as Kickstarter, “provides a great way to help establish an event, helping raise seed funding and developing demand. Having helped promote a number of events in New York, we have a large database. Every year the biggest call has been to help establish a Tattoo in New York. Kickstarter provides a wonderful way to connect with this interest and having established demand it then makes a much more interesting proposition to sponsors.
“I would imagine that in the future a lot more events will be funded this way. It is also a great way to test your marketing. At this stage we are really pleased with the support, but must really push over the next ten days to reach our target for the event to be funded.
“We are delighted that four times and current World Champion Drum Major – Jason Paguio has agreed to perform. We also have a very well known narrator lined-up to give an authentic voice to the show and other members of the production team bring years of experience working on the best Tattoo’s around the World. We may not have the biggest cast in the World, but we do aim to have quality and look forward to presenting an indoor show next April. We hope that this turns into a great yearly event providing a platform for Scotland’s music and artists”.
The term ‘tattoo’ dates from 17th century Europe, when garrisons sent out drummers in the evening to inform the soldiers that it was time to return to barracks. The process was known in Dutch as ‘doe den tap toe’ (Dutch for “turn off the tap”), an instruction to innkeepers to stop serving beer. Over time the performance of a ‘tattoo’ became more elaborate to include music and dance elements.
With kilts swinging and bagpipes playing, the tattoo format is ideally suited to showcase Scottish music – pulling together a wide range of acts with individual and massed performances to encapsulate the spirit of Scotland!
Support the New York Tattoo on Kickstarter. The campaign ends on the 25th of January.