Norman Mackay’s Ceilidh Experience are the Ceilidh Rock Band guaranteed to get your party started in Glasgow!
Regularly captivating audiences at weddings and events in Glasgow, ‘Norman Mackay’s Ceilidh Experience’ has been a transformative force in the ceilidh music scene for more than ten years. Our dynamic and lively performances have established us as the preferred ceilidh band for celebrities, politicians, and entertainment figures. We provide bespoke entertainment for a variety of occasions, including wedding ceilidhs, university events, private gatherings, and festivals, across Glasgow, Scotland, and the wider UK.
While we specialise in Scottish dancing, we’re far from your typical ‘traditional’ ceilidh band. We tend to think of ourselves as more of a ceilidh rock party band! Our setup includes an accordion interfacing with midi samples via an iPad, an electric fiddle connected to a speaker stack, a guitarist with a reality TV rock star pedigree, and a Polish drum prodigy with extensive experience as a session drummer in Manhattan’s Jazz scene. With our in-house DJ also part of the team, you can be confident your party will be unforgettable!
Our band members are based in Edinburgh and Livingston, and we delight in our frequent trips along the M8 to play gigs and events in Glasgow and the surounding areas. Give us a shout if you’d like to see us live in action before you book!
What we bring to the party
Norman Mackay’s Ceilidh Experience are a professional rock ceilidh band. If you are looking for ceilidh band hire in Glasgow or the surrounding area here’s what we can offer:
- Ceilidh Rock Band – an energetic mix of traditional ceilidh dances, the occasional instrumental cover, and even the odd folk-techno freakout! all perfectly tailored to your event and audience.
- Ceilidh Band & DJ packages – Dedicated DJ with online music planner
- Wedding Ceilidh Band
- Additional services such as early setup & speech microphone can be provided
- Venue coordination: We liaise with the venue to confirm timings, access, and provide up-to-date PAT test & Public liability certificates.
- Opportunity to see the band LIVE before booking
We focus on making each private event special, limiting ourselves to a maximum of 50 per year, mainly wedding ceilidhs, alongside our other engagements. This limit helps us keep our energy high and ensures each event feels unique. By choosing quality over quantity, we ensure our clients get excellent service and a memorable experience.
Get in touch with us for availability & ceilidh band hire cost for your event in Glasgow. If you have not yet seen us live, why not come along to a live gig? You can keep up to date with our upcoming events on our ‘Gig Diary’ or Facebook page.
As well as regularly performing as a Wedding ceilidh band in Glasgow, we love to provide the music and vibes for Burns Nights, student ceilidhs, Christmas ceilidhs, corporate entertainment… the list goes on. Some of the venues we’ve played in Glasgow include Oranmor, The Citation, Glasgow Science Center, House for an Art Lover, St Andrews In The Square, The Trades Hall, Pollockshields Burgh Hall, and numerous hotels.
To check availability and get a quotation for ceilidh band hire Glasgow, please complete our ENQUIRY FORM and we’ll get right back to you.
Here are a recent selection of testimonials provided by some of the happy customers who have hired The Ceilidh Experience!
Testimonials
Here are some testimonials from ceilidhs we’ve played in and around Glasgow – see our testimonials page for more.
Kilmardinny House, Glasgow, 5th Aug 2022
Dear Norman, I just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank you and your colleagues for an incredible evening on Friday. We loved every minute of it, and were totally blown away by how good the band was. We’ve been around a lot of ceilidhs in our time, and this was the very best of them. My friends are keen for me to make it an annual event, so we’ll see! Best wishes and hopefully we will get a chance to have another one in the future. Andy
Wedding Ceilidh – Kingshouse Hotel, Glencoe, 5th Nov 2022
I cannot recommend this band enough, they were totally above expectations. Friendly, funny on the mic, brilliant musicians, passionate about ceilidh-ing and they were hands down the highlight of my Wedding Day. Their interesting style makes it for a brilliant Ceilidh, taken to a new level. Our guests loved the brief pop/rock music interludes between dances, and truly think no ceilidh band is complete without an accordion. Book them now, you won’t regret it! Rosie Findlay
The Barn at Harburn, West Calder, 21st June 2022
We hired the Ceilidh Experience in June 2022 along with their DJ and it was absolutely fantastic. They are all really friendly and helpful, and total professionals. All our guests loved both the disco and the ceilidh, and the quality of the music and all the gear that they brought with them was top notch too. We will definitely be seeing them again! I can’t recommend them highly enough. Alastair & Geetanjali
Linlithgow Burgh Halls, 20th May 2022
Norman and the band were brilliant. Everyone has commented saying how it was such a fantastic ceilidh. Given that no one has been to a ceilidh in the last couple of years the whole band were on fire and really made up for it. We had several guests who had never been to a ceilidh before and they have all loved the experience. It can be daunting being thrown into a ceilidh but everything was run through first and then we were off! Word of advice – you might think your dance floor is big enough but it’s never big enough, everyone will be up with these guys playing! Lauren & Stephen
Crieff Hydro, 21 August 2019
The Ceilidh Experience played our wedding at Crieff Hydro Hotel – we had about half and half English and Scottish guests , which meant that a lot of our guests hadn’t a clue about the ceilidh dances. This was never a problem on the night though, as the band did a great job of talking us through the dances one by one in a friendly way. They’re excellent musicians (as you can tell by their samples on their website) and they got everybody into a really fun, give-it-a-go spirit. The feedback we’ve had from guests (including those that had never Ceilidhed before) has been overwhelmingly positive. People were saying they forgot to take any photos because they got so caught up in all the dancing! They were a friendly bunch too, and were really good at communicating with us in the run-up to the event. Their DJ was also very helpful, and kept the party entertained well between sets with a mix of our requests and popular hits, and he also put up with my anxieties about making sure we had the right music for our first dance! Could not recommend Ceilidh Experience enough for weddings/parties/ family gatherings and hope to be at one of their events at some point in the near future. Nicola & Eric
