BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The Celtic Cultural Alliance, which has run Bethlehem’s Celtic Classic Highland Games & Festival since 1988, announced Wednesday that it is shutting down, making last month’s festival the last.
The alliance blamed money, not crowds, and its federal tax returns show the strain: its net assets, what it owned minus what it owed, fell by about two-thirds in two years, to $99,158 at the end of 2023.
The closing ends more than the festival, held this year Sept. 25-27. The alliance also ran the Parade of Shamrocks, concerts, cultural classes and educational programs, and it says it offers scholarships to young students of Irish step dance, Highland dance, fiddle and bagpipes.
Attendance “has remained strong,” the alliance said in its announcement, but changing spending habits, several years of weather that affected the festival, the lasting financial hit of the COVID-19 pandemic and steadily rising operating costs left the nonprofit in an “unsustainable financial reality.”
The returns, filed as Celtic Fest Inc. doing business as Celtic Cultural Alliance, show net assets of $302,927 at the end of 2021. The alliance lost $7,122 in 2022 and $196,647 in 2023, when revenue dropped to $528,151 from $825,818.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision,” Board President Lane Rundle said in the announcement. “The Celtic Cultural Alliance has always been about bringing people together through music, culture, education, and tradition.”
The nonprofit finished 2024 about $47,700 ahead on $878,272 in revenue, bringing its net assets back to $146,902, its return shows. What it owed also rose that year, to $200,428 in total liabilities from $71,775.
Sales, after the cost of what was sold, brought in about 62% of 2024 revenue and contributions about 37%. The alliance reported two employees and 435 volunteers. Its return for 2025 is not yet among the IRS’s released electronic filings.
The alliance has not said when its operations will formally end, or whether anyone could carry on the festival or the parade.
The board thanked Executive Director Jayne Ann Recker, who has led the organization for the past 18 years. Through the festival, the parade and its other programs, the alliance said, it welcomed millions of visitors to the Lehigh Valley.
