Washington vs. Oregon

The Kilt & Thistle Scottish Shop has been around since December of 1996. We opened a retail store and then added our sales on the Internet at www.kilts.com. The summer of ‘97 we started selling at some of the Highland Games here in the Northwest. Only a few at first, but we added events every year until we were doing twelve a year for several years. For more than a few years our sales at a single highland games event was equivalent to a full months of sales in our retail store. The reason we added as many events as we could. So there is a little of the background information and gives you a idea of how important the events were for the growth of the business. From the start the contrast between Oregon and Washington Highland Game events were dramatic. The state of Washington has roughly twice the population that Oregon does, and that is very important in respect to everything else. The Portland Highland Games is the largest of the events in Oregon and over the last ten years has had an average attendance around 8,000. The event itself is just over 50 years old , another important fact. There are another ten or so events around Oregon with attendance amongst all these around 2,000 average per event. Now remember that Washington has double the population than Oregon. Washington has a similar number of events, but the attendance difference is staggering as well as the enthusiasm factor. There are three large events in Washington, Bellingham Game in June, and Skagit Valley and the Pacific Northwest Highland Games, AKA Seattle Highland Games are both in July. Bellingham has an attendance around 12,000, Skagit Valley at 25,000 and the Seattle Games at 35,000. The Seattle Highland Games and the Portland Games have both been around the same number of years and look at the difference in attendance. Naturally as any good businessman I try to evaluate why these numbers differ so much. It is more than just shear numbers, evidenced by the two early spring events we did this year. The Tartan Day Festival in Puyallup and the Eugene Scottish Festival in May. The size of these events is about the same as the number of attendance, and similar numbers , in Clans, Vendors and entertainment offerings. The Tartan Day event is indoors and the Eugene event is outdoors, being the only major difference. This fact also threw my “outdoor events are better” theory right out the window. The Tartan Day event was more than double in total sales for us, over Eugene, and the quality of those in attendance was amazing as the Tartan Day event attendees were terrific. We have had our poor years at every event and theses two are no exception. But Eugene has been very disappointing for several years now. Frankly the only reason we show to either one of these events is the wonderful and dedicated people that organize and put them together. So back to my dilemma, why is the attendance so dramatically better in Washington than Oregon? Do people in Washington care about their Scottish heritage more than Oregonians? Is it the fact that Washington is closer to Canada a factor?