WINDSOR — Just a week before hosting its annual agricultural fair, which features events testing the ability of farm animals to move heavy objects including stones and logs, the Windsor fairgrounds will for the first time host the Maine Highland Games and Scottish Festival, including a men’s Scottish Heavy Athletics World Championship competition.

In that event, massive men from around the world will compete in several events in which they’ll be the ones moving heavy stones and logs in feats of strength.

It’s a prestigious event for Maine to host, its longtime organizers say. And if it was not for Windsor Fair officials agreeing to step in to host the event, it may not have happened. Its most recent location, Thomas Point Beach & Campground in Brunswick, was sold to a new owner who declined to host it.

“If it wasn’t for Windsor, we wouldn’t have had anything at all, and we would have lost the (Scottish Heavy Athletics Men’s World) Championship, which is a pretty big deal for Maine, so we’re incredibly blessed to have Windsor,” said Shari Rodden, games chair and event director for Maine Highland Games and Scottish Festival, which is organized by the Saint Andrews Society of Maine. “We were left virtually homeless, and we’re not a small-potatoes event. We need lots of rooms for the athletes, because they throw things very far.”

Neither space for large-scale events nor capacity to host large crowds should present a problem for the fairgrounds, said Tom Foster, longtime fair president who recently stepped down so one of his sons, Dan Foster, can take over the role. The 50-acre fairgrounds is set up to host a large midway of games, vendors and carnival rides, harness horse-racing and a demolition derby. The site has numerous barns, open fields and public event spaces, campgrounds and public facilities, including bathrooms and other infrastructure capable of handing the more than 100,000 fair attendees every year.

The event being so close to the annual agricultural fair will mean volunteers, vendors and others who often start setting up for the fair two weeks or more ahead of time will only have one week to do so, this year. The Maine Highland Games and Scottish Festival is planned for the weekend of Aug. 16 and 17, while this year’s fair run is Aug. 23 to Sept. 1.

But organizers believe it will all come together.

“It’s just a week before our fair opens, which could be kind of a logistical problem, but we think we’ve got it figured out,” Tom Foster said. “We tried for another date but they’ve got commitments for the world championship, so they couldn’t move the date. It’s going to work and we should get a real good turnout. This is the real deal. People are coming from all over for it. A lot of people who have never been to Maine before.”

Rodden said they’re not sure how many people to expect, but guesses they’ll get somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people for the two-day event. The former site could only take up to 3,500 people, she said.

Foster said that shouldn’t be a problem as the fair gets that many people almost daily during its fair run. He said the area where the midway is usually set up should lend itself well to the heavy athletics games.

Rodden said Maine has the highest percentage of people of Scottish descent of any U.S. state.

Tickets to the two-day event are available online . Prices range from $15 either day for a child, to $45 on Saturday and $32 on Sunday for adults. A two-day pass costs $30 for a child or $75 for an adult.

Rodden said the Saturday of the festival will be packed with events day and night, while Sunday will feature daytime events focused on family-friendly activities.

Events are scheduled to include regular heavy athletics events for men, women and youths in addition to the world championships, sheep herding dogs and demonstrations, traditional Scottish dancing, pipes and drums, stone lifting, armored fighting demonstrations, kilt making demonstrations, numerous food and merchandise vendors, and numerous bands. For an additional charge, a whisky tasting with Scottish actor and author Graham McTavish is available.

McTavish, who starred in “The Hobbit” film trilogy, and TV series “Outlander,” “Preacher” and “House of the Dragon,” has his own whisky brand, McTavish Spirits.

Jimmy Rodden is a native of Scotland and Shari’s husband, and president of the nonprofit Saint Andrew’s Society of Maine, which is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Scottish culture and heritage, and has hosted the games for 46 years. He said the event should bring a little bit of Scotland to Windsor, with an authentic version of the Highland Games.

“The games will be as real as if you spent money for a plane ticket and went to Scotland,” he said.

Jimmy Rodden said the traditional Highland Games that the Maine events are modeled after started in 1514. He said the games’ focus on challenges overcome by strength were born from the Scottish clans “getting bullied for 500 years” and fighting back against their oppressors.

Scottish heavy athletics events include caber tossing, in which competitors pick up roughly 19-foot logs and flip them into the air, end over end, and throwing stones and other heavy objects for distance, height, and/or accuracy.