Arts /

Musical boat trips and planetarium suggested as Lerwick 28 survey enters final week

Lerwick bid shortlisted for £3m windfall and town of culture designation

2 October 2026 13:11

STREET theatre, musical boat trips and a planetarium are just some of the suggestions being made for a £3 million windfall if Lerwick is named the 2028 town of culture.

A survey for the Lerwick 28 bid – which you can fill out here – is entering its final week, with folk having until Friday 9 October to put forward their ideas for what the town of culture could mean for Lerwick.

Shetland’s capital is in the running to be named the first ever town of culture by the UK Government, with Lerwick one of six ‘small towns’ shortlisted.

The Lerwick 28 Town of Culture logo.

An independent panel will select a best small, medium and large town to go through to the final round, with the overall winner receiving £3 million to deliver events and projects in 2028.

The Lerwick 28 bid was launched in mid-September, with people given just under a month to give their suggestions as to what the £3 million could be used to deliver.

The team behind the bid said earlier this week that they have had a big response to the survey so far, with one person suggesting Lerwick’s Commercial Street could be “transformed into a venue for live music, art and food and drink”.

A Shetland fashion week, an outdoor dry ski slope and a “story ship” where people go on a boat and hear stories about Shetland have all been suggested.

The Lerwick 28 team said new suggestions had included an investigation of what lies below old Lerwick, and an Olympic Games style opening ceremony for the start of Lerwick’s town of culture year.

David Nicol, who is business liaison for the Lerwick 28 bid, told the Sheeks about Shetland podcast this week that it had been “really interesting to see some of the things people are suggesting”.

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“It’s not a tickbox exercise, we actually do want to hear what people have to say,” he said.

“A lot of young folk are responding, which is great.”

Nicol said that if Lerwick was to win the bid then the benefits would “extend far and wide” across the isles.

“It would be something of benefit to everyone in Shetland,” he said.

Community liaison Mhari McLeman also told the podcast that while Lerwick was the face of the campaign, the bid was really “from the whole of Shetland”.

She likened it to the Tall Ships Races, which Lerwick has hosted in 1999, 2011 and 2023.

“The whole of Shetland really embraced it,” she said of that event.

Describing what was driving the Lerwick 28 bid, she said that though “Lerwick is the stage”, “Shetland is the story”.

Feedback from the UK Government had been to make sure that the “town of Lerwick has to come through” the bid strongly, McLeman said.

She repeated a sentiment that she told Shetland News last month in saying that Lerwick becoming the town of culture “could open really incredible opportunities for our talented folk in Shetland”.