For a long time we had a dream of being able to say thank you to Diana Gabaldon. Not only for creating the Outlander story and all the characters that we have all grown to love but we wanted to do that right here in Inverness where the story begins, and sometime the stars align to make the most memorable event that was bigger then any dream you could have.
As 2022 is Visit Scotland’s Year of the Stories we had been in discussion with different organisations to be able to bring Diana Gabaldon to Inverness to celebrate Diana, Outlander and all that this has done for the local area with all the visitors that come to Inverness because of the books. But because of Covid and events from the past 2 years that had been rescheduled to this year this meant that funding for events was in short supply and so without funding it was felt that this event was going to be too expensive to put on.
Diana Gabaldon had already agreed to come to Inverness in October 2022 her accommodation was already booked, so we all put our heads together and we came up with a few solutions / ideas of how to put on an event ourselves, and once we had spoken to Diana about our plans it was all systems go…. The Inverness Outlanders were organising “An Audience with Diana Gabaldon” on our own.
We never expected to be the ones to organise such a big event and we only had 12 weeks to organise it.
We announced “An Audience with Diana Gabaldon” which was going to be at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness on Saturday 15th October on our social media channels at 6pm on Thursday 7th July and the press release was shared by the media ( links to press articles).
We contacted Outlander fans groups all over the world to help us spread the word about this event
Tickets went on sale on the following Monday, 11th July at 10am ….. Outlander fans didn’t let us down, tickets were selling. We sold over 100 tickets in the first hour!
Over the next few weeks we were kept busy organising the event and promoting it on our Social Media. As we are a non profit community group, we applied to the Inverness Common Good Fund to assist with promotional costs and few added extras we wanted to add to the event to make this event extra special and we are happy to say we were successful and were given awarded £1850 to help with this.
A few weeks before the event we announced that local award-winning writer, historian and broadcaster, and fellow Inverness Outlander Sarah Fraser was going to be the interviewer for the event. We can’t thank Sarah enough for agreeing to take on this task.
The day before the event, Friday 14th October we organised a press call with Diana Gabaldon and were amazed that local and national press came to interview Diana.
Finally the big day arrived……
Eden Court Theatre staff were absolutely amazing and helped to make sure the event ran smoothly the stage was dresses beautifully and all the staff went above and beyond to make sure everyone had a fantastic night. Thanks also to Loch Ness Country House Hotel for providing the beautiful chairs for the stage https://lochnesscountryhouse.cobbshotels.com/
The ushers even got into the spirit of the evening by agreeing to dress up in Outlander inspired costumes designed by the very creative team at Grantown Museum who also run Adventures in Costume: https://www.adventuresincostume.com/
Before and after the event there were opportunities to purchase some Outlander related merchandise at a few stalls. A big thank you to Waterstones Inverness, Highland Celtic Art, Highlanders for Hire, Gillebrìde Macmillan and Aurora Jewellery.
Onto the main event …
We wanted this evening to be special not only for the audience but for Diana Gabaldon, this wasn’t just going to be audience with Diana Gabaldon …..we had a few surprises up our sleeves for Diana too.
We started the show off with Hamish MacDonald (Poet) who is the first Scots Scriever at the National Library of Scotland, he’s the 2022 Scottish Slam Poetry Champion and was runner up at the 2022 World Slam Poetry Championships.
We had asked Hamish to translate and preform the Prologue to Outlander in Scots. This was amazing you could of heard a pin drop in the auditorium the audience were entranced by Hamish’s performance.
People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread and butter to journalists. Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars. Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations. Usually.
Folk disappear aw the time. Speir eftir ony polisman. Or mair’s tae the pynt, speir eftir a jurnalist. Disappearances are breid and butter tae a jurnalist. Quinies rin awa frae hame. Bairns gang aff frae ther parents and are never seen again. Guidwives rax the ends o ther tethers, tak the siller for the messages and a taxi tae the station. International financiers chynge ther names then vanish intae the reek o importit cigars. Mony o the lost will be foond, eventually, deid or alive. Disapearances, eftir aw, hae ther explanations. Yaisually.
This was quickly followed by Gillebrìde Macmillan who is a Gaelic coach on Outlander and starred as Gwyllyn the Bard in the first season of the TV series where he regaled those in Castle Leoch with traditional Gaelic songs and tales.
Gillebride has recently written a song which will feature in Season 7 of Outlander, plus his CD of self-penned songs has a forward from Diana herself and his new CD will feature one from Sam Heughan.
Gillebride enchanted the audience by singing the Skye Boat Song in English and Gaelic and of course the audience participated by singing along.
Caroline Keith one of our admin of the Inverness Outlanders then introduced the Inverness Outlanders to the audience and the wonderful Sarah Fraser to the stage.
Sarah Fraser is author of The Last Highlander https://www.sarahfraser.co.uk/books/the-last-highlander/ (New York best selling true story about the ‘Old Fox’ which just happens to be Outlanders Jamie Fraser’s Grandad ), a historian, a member of Inverness Outlanders, Sarah is also a speaker and historical consultant, she married into the Clan Fraser of Lovat, and has appeared in Men in Kilts with Outlander TV stars Sam Heughan and Graham MacTavish.
An amazing hour long and very interesting conversation followed between Sarah Fraser and Diana Gabaldon with questions and answers that many fans had never heard before.
Diana also read out a couple of excerpts from as yet untitled Book 10.
We’ve been told by many Outlander fan who were there that this was the best interview that they have seen with Diana Gabaldon it was like watching two friends get together for a very interesting chat.
We thanked Diana and Sarah with a big bouquet of white roses and thistles.
And to round off the night and to give Diana the Highland welcome she deserves we had a lone piper came onto stage and start to play Highland Cathedral.
A gasp went around the auditorium as he was joined by the rest of the Inverness City Pipe Band down both sides of theatre for the second verse of Highland Cathedral to join in with the lone piper. This was very emotional for everyone and there was not a dry eye in the house.
This part of the evening ended with Diana and Sarah getting a thunderous applause and a standing ovation. This you can see in Diana’s face that this moment was a good one.
Diana with Inverness City Pipe Band
Diana Gabaldon with with the current official Chief of the Clan Mackenzie John Ruaridh Grant Mackenzie and his son and Heir Colin Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat.
We were delighted when the Mackenzie Chief accepted our invitation to the evening we had hoped to have the the Fraser Clan Chief there too but unfortunately he was away at the time but having his aunt Sarah Fraser conducting the interview with Diana was more then we could ever ask for.
Another fantastic Scottish author we had invited and a very good friend of the Inverness Outlanders was Maggie Craig who is a Scottish writer, historian, author of the ground-breaking and acclaimed Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45
Four admin of the Inverness Outlander Sinead Robertson, Lisa Davies, Julie Mutch and Caroline Keith worked hard to put this memorable evening together but we couldn’t of do it without the help and support from the all the members of Inverness Outlanders especially our compare Sarah Fraser and Photographer Nyree Roxburgh.
A huge shout out goes to the members of the worldwide Outlander communities who helped us spread the word of our event around the world which meant we had Diana Gabaldon fans coming to inverness from all over the world to Inverness.
We can’t thank all the people enough who came together to make this evening one we are not going to forget.
After the evenings event on stage we then had the book signing in the Bishops Palace in Eden Court.
People then started to queue for the book signing.
We knew there would be a long queue, but we didn’t expect people to queue for 3hrs to see Diana!
Lots of friendships were made and stories shared in the queue, Eden Court said it was the longest queue for anyone they had ever seen.
Just after midnight Diana signed the last book and our very special evening came to an end.
This night meant a lot to us in more ways then one, just less then two months after this special evening we very very sadly lost one of our admin Caroline Keith to cancer. This special evening was one of Caroline’s last ‘good days’ she had and was determined to make it onto the stage to introduce ‘An Audience with Diana Gabaldon’ and a fantastic job she did of it. Thank you Caroline for everything you will always shine bright x
Inverness Outlanders 
think you all need to read review on wardlaw mausoleum not good ………..
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Thank you for sharing the video and condolences on the loss of your friend.
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