There is a specific sound that carries across an open lawn better than almost anything else, and on August 22 four pipe bands will be making it on the grounds of a 200-acre Gold Coast estate in Old Westbury.

The Long Island Celtic Festival and Highland Games returns to Old Westbury Gardens on Saturday, August 22, running from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., rain or shine. It honors the Irish, Scottish and Welsh communities of Long Island and the wider New York metro area.

The basics

Old Westbury Gardens sits at 71 Old Westbury Road in Old Westbury. It is the former John S. Phipps estate, a Charles II style mansion completed in 1906 surrounded by formal gardens and lawns, and it is one of the few places on Long Island with enough open ground to hold a Highland Games and a pipe band field at the same time.

Admission runs $25 in advance and $30 the day of the event, for all ages. Early bird online pricing is available through August 19 at 11:59 p.m., with regular pricing taking effect August 20. Buying ahead is the obvious move: it is cheaper, and it saves you the gate line on a day that starts at 8 a.m.

The Highland Games

This is the part people come for even when they arrive claiming they came for the music.

Athletes from the Empire Throwing Club will demonstrate the traditional Scottish heavy events, including the caber toss, the stone put and the sheaf toss. If you have only ever seen the caber toss in a photograph, the thing to understand is that it is not a distance event. The caber is a tapered log, and the goal is to flip it end over end so it lands pointing directly away from you, scored like a clock face at twelve o'clock. It is a control event that happens to require enormous strength, which is why it looks so improbable in person.

The stone put is the ancestor of the modern shot put. The sheaf toss involves throwing a weighted burlap bag over a raised bar with a pitchfork, which is exactly as agricultural in origin as it sounds.

Pipes, dance and the main stage

Four pipe bands perform through the day: Amityville Pipe & Drum, Clan Gordon Highlander, Inis Fada Gaelic and Northport Pipe & Drum. Massed bands, where all of them play together, is the moment worth planning your afternoon around.

The main stage lineup includes Andy Cooney, Harpers Ferry, Chivalrous Crickets and Shot of Scotch.

Irish step dance is represented by three Long Island schools: the Ciara Greene School of Irish Step Dancing, the Donny Golden School and the Kender Academy of Irish Dance.

If you are bringing children

The festival sets aside an area called Wee Celt Land, with magician Zach Alexander, face painting, and birds of prey demonstrations from the Sweet Briar Nature Center in Smithtown. Sweet Briar's raptors are live, close and genuinely impressive, and that demonstration tends to hold the attention of children who have run out of patience for bagpipes.

The odd corners

A section called Highland Happenings gathers the things that do not fit anywhere else and are frequently the best part of the day. The Long Island Curling Club will be on hand, which is a rare chance to ask questions about a sport most people only encounter every four years. There is a display of classic British automobiles. The Spinning Study Group of Long Island demonstrates traditional weaving, which is the sort of thing you walk past intending to glance at and then stand watching for fifteen minutes.

Food and shopping

Food trucks scheduled include Bayside Corn, Cameron's Scottish Market, Bayside Lemonade, Sausage Kings, Tastefully British, Mister Softee, Island Empanada and Yankee Doodle Dandy's. Cameron's and Tastefully British are where to go if you want the actual thing rather than the festival-adjacent thing.

The marketplace includes Celtic Art Studio, Bonnie Doon's Shortbread, The Celtic Bag, Celtic Treasures, Celtic Vibe, La Wren's Nest, Lilla Rose, Metals and Pieces and Queen of Whoopies, among others.

Practical notes

Nine hours is a long day outdoors on an open lawn in late August. Sunscreen, water and something to sit on will improve the experience considerably.

One scheduling conflict worth flagging: August 22 is also the opening day of the Long Island Seafood Festival in West Sayville, about 35 miles east. Doing both in one Saturday is possible, but only if you treat Old Westbury as the morning and accept that you will miss the massed bands.