Forres-based Burgess Bagpipes has been producing instruments for musicians all over the world since 2015. The shop is run by Burgess Hay, his wife Fiona and son Scott, a family which has a long heritage of playing and making bagpipes. The business offers Scottish Small-pipes, the Border Pipes, and the Highland Bagpipes, popular with both amateur and professional pipers.
While the European Pipe Band Championships and Highland and Island Enterprises being based in Forres helps business, the firm’s online shop has attracted attention from more than 50 countries around the world.
Name: Burgess Hay
Age: 55
Position: Co-founder
WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?
BURGESS Bagpipes Ltd.
WHERE IS IT BASED?
FORRES, Moray.
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
MY father-in-law was John McDougall, a world champion piper [who died in 2016] and my son is also a professional piper so piping has always been a part of our family. While my son was studying music we were looking for an instrument for him to play.
When he finished studying we decided to run an instrument-making service professionally.
We spotted a gap in the market for high quality instruments at a reasonable price and shorter delivery.
I used to have an engineering business.
We use standard industrial techniques on a lot of our products which is probably different to a lot of other pipe makers.
My son has grown up all of his life with pipes and around machine shops so none of it is alien to us. We have a lot of expertise so we decided to make pipes professionally.
WHERE ARE THE PIPES STOCKED?
ANYWHERE in the world from our website but mostly the UK from the National Piping Centre, Europe and America.
Germany specifically is a big market for us – it is the third biggest country we sell to on our website. I think piping is popular with Germans because they can identify with the strong sense of culture we have in Scotland.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
WE are completely different from most bagpipe businesses because we design the pipes from scratch.
We also make all three types – Highland pipes, small-pipes and Border pipes.
The vast majority of pipe companies in Scotland don’t make all three. Our approach is totally different because our pipes look modern and play totally differently.
We describe ourselves as a modern Scottish family business with tradition behind it.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
WE have a huge range of customers with the majority being under the age of 45.
Our typical customer is usually male though there are a number of women who play bellows pipes now.
Pipe band music is growing but people also want to play it with other instruments like the fiddle and guitar. The highland pipes are not great for that.
The type of bagpipes we make are in the keys of A, C and D so they can be played with other instruments.
A lot of our customers are in pipe bands who listen to traditional pipe music for pleasure but they are also fans of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Manran, Skerryvore and Treacherous Orchestra – two members of this band actually play our instruments.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?
THERE are many enjoyable things about running your own company.
However, the best thing is the really great people we get to meet.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS ?
WE want the business to continue to grow.
This would be mostly in the export market.
Our second biggest pipes seller is the US and Canada followed by Germany.
The UK piping market is only so big, and while we will still continue to focus on it, it will become a much smaller part of the business as time goes on and we concentrate more on the international market.
There’s lots of piping tradition in Europe, for example in France and Spain.
That tradition in Europe is something that we want the business to be part of.
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