Arrowtown hosts Burns Supper and Ceilidh
This past Saturday Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall was transformed into a wee Scottish town as 200 people headed out to celebrate Burns Night. The event, which is a celebration of the 1700’s poet Robert Burns included haggis, poetry reading, a band, traditional dance and drinks – a dram or two was certainly had. The celebration is set to return again in 2024.
Burns Night is a Scottish celebration on 25 January (the poet’s birthday) that traditionally includes eating haggis, drinking whisky, reciting some of Robert Burns’ poems and songs, as well as some dancing. Burns is a bit of a Scottish national treasure and is widely regarded as the poet of Scotland. In addition to poetry, he also wrote and performed many folk songs.
Chris Hutton, who originally hails from Edinburgh, has been working hard behind the scenes and organised this year’s celebrations in Arrowtown. Many hands helped to make light work as Chris was assisted by many within the community – he was thrilled that the event went off without a hitch.
“We had the traditional format of a Burns Supper, which was an introduction, soup course, and some spoken word and poetry – some of it written for the event and some of it was old poetry and songs written by Burns himself. Then the haggis came in and got murdered, ceremoniously, by a very colourful character called Ross. The tables were cleared which opened up the dancefloor. The Hair of the Dog, which is probably New Zealand’s best Ceilidh band, played. They are hopefully going into partnership with me next year,” says Chris.
Chris started the event last year after Covid, pulling it together in just 8 weeks – he wanted to have a bit of fun and a dance after all the lockdowns. It was hugely successful and they almost ran out of whisky – something they were well-prepared for this year. Chris works hard on the event simply for people to have a good time and half the proceeds are donated to The Kiwi Kit Community Trust. They are a charitable trust that creates programmes and projects to support migrants, to connect the community and give back. A lot of hard work goes on to pull together an event for 200 people.
“The reward is there and I know that a lot of people have enjoyed themselves – that’s the reward. I’m not doing this for any reason other than trying to get an event going that’s sustainable. Burns Night is quite a niche thing, unless you’ve been to one you don’t know what it’s all about. If you don’t know the Scots language, you may not appreciate all the spoken words, so we did some subtitles.
“Nothing went wrong, which was great and everyone that was working also had fun. It was an all-round success,” says Chris.
Mark your diaries now – the Burns Night celebrations will return next year. In the meantime, Queenstown is home to a large Scottish contingency and there’s several community groups. You can find more info at the Queenstown Lakes District Council Community Connect page or by having a bit of a Google.
Images credit: Le Tans Photography
