Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo

On Monday, we drove in to Halifax to see the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo.

We had planned to go in to Halifax on Canada Day (Saturday) to see various events going on, including a flight performance by the Canadian Snowbirds -- but, the flight show was cancelled due to weather, and we figured the other events which were also outside would possibly be cancelled or, at least, unpleasant in the rain. So, Monday was our first jaunt in to Halifax.

Monday was also cloudy and overcast with rain predicted, but as we drove in, it wasn't raining...

We saw some interesting murals as we drove... couldn't get all of this one... is that a cat with a really long neck under the tail of the blue jay? (Actually I think it is the branch that the bird is perched upon, but it sure looks like the back of a cat's head on the right side!)

We're not sure what this mural was illustrating! (Some more information about the murals along this road: https://discoverhalifaxns.com/things-to-do/discover-the-murals-of-quinpool-road/)

The Tattoo was going to be in the Scotiabank Centre. I had researched, and found that there was no parking at the centre itself, but there were indications that there was street parking, and a "parkade" at Scotia Square (a downtown shopping mall) - just a block or so away. We were following the Garmin's directions to the parkade, but the road to get there was under construction and closed, so we turned on another street... it appeared traffic was really tied up as we got closer to the Scotiabank Centre, and we saw a sign along the street that indicated that there was pay parking in a garage under a building, so we turned in...

... the ceiling was a bit low, and the columns made the parking spaces a bit tight to get into, but we got parked! Then we joined the line of people who were as clueless as we were about how to pay for the parking, but we eventually got to the automated pay machine and registered our license plate and paid.

As we were walking to the Scotiabank Centre, we passed the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site -- we had hoped to visit it on Saturday, but, alas...

Outside of the Scotiabank Centre

I had selected and purchased our tickets online a couple of months ago -- I wasn't sure about what the best seats might be, but it turned out that the ones we got were really good! (Carl took a picture of me as we were waiting for the show to begin.)

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo

You may be surprised (as we were) to find out that the first definition in the Oxford English Dictionary for the word "tattoo" is the definition for what we were seeing:

tat·too¹

noun

noun: tattoo; plural noun: tattoos

1. an evening drum or bugle signal recalling soldiers to their quarters.

   "a military tattoo takes place with clockwork precision"

   • British

     an entertainment consisting of music, marching, and the performance of displays and exercises by military personnel.

     "a visit to Edinburgh during the Festival includes a visit to the Tattoo"
   • a rhythmic tapping or drumming.

     "she tapped her fingers in a nervous tattoo"

Origin

mid 17th century (originally as tap-too ) from Dutch taptoe!, literally ‘close the tap (of the cask)!’.

(The second definition is the verb and noun relating to marking the skin.)

Soon after we arrived, a bagpipe player came out onto the floor and "piped" some of the other audience members to their seats -- in the section right next to us! The lady sitting next to me confided to me that it cost about CN$100 more for the seats if you got "piped" to them.

There were also 3 rows of dignitaries or invited guests in that section next to us, right at the same level above the floor that our seats were, who were brought in as a group right before the event started. The US ambassador was in that group of people.

For more information about the event, you can currently view their website at https://nstattoo.ca/ -- I don't know how long it will have information about the 2023 event.

We thoroughly enjoyed it! Carl took lots of pictures and videos during the 2.5 hour show, and I consolidated them into a 12 minute 20 second video that is available on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/iECd3mIrE60

I hope you might enjoy some of it too!