Ceilidh Band Hire
Across Scotland

What you are actually hiring

A ceilidh band is not quite the same thing as a function band, and the difference matters when you are comparing quotes. The band plays the traditional Scottish dance tunes; the caller walks the room through each dance before it starts and talks people through it while it runs. That second part is the whole job. A room of guests who have never done a Strip the Willow in their lives will dance all night with a good caller and will stand at the bar without one.

Every package here includes the caller as standard rather than as an add-on, along with the full PA, atmospheric lighting, setup and pack-down, and a microphone for speeches. Most also include a DJ set, which is what fills the gaps between ceilidh sets and carries the last hour of the night. You can read the dances themselves on the ceilidh dances page if you want to know what your guests will actually be doing.

How the line-ups differ

The number of musicians changes the volume and the fullness of the sound, not the repertoire or the calling — a one-man setup calls the same dances as a three-piece. What it changes is how big a room the sound can fill comfortably. A small hall or an intimate venue is well served by the smaller line-ups; a four-hundred-seat hotel ballroom genuinely wants the fuller band, and we will say so if you ask.

Full detail, including what counts as a standard evening, is on the packages page.

Travel and coverage

Everything within 100 miles of Perth carries no travel charge at all, which covers the great majority of Scotland's population — Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Fife, Stirling, the Lothians, the Borders, Loch Lomond and most of Dumfries & Galloway all sit inside it. Each links to that area's own page. Beyond that line we still travel; it is quoted separately and clearly before you commit to anything, never added afterwards.