Fair Isle festival planned for August

Living Lerwick is planning a summer “Fair Isle Festival” to encourage more locals and visitors of all ages to come to the town centre.

The event will be part of the activities surrounding Lerwick being selected as a Business Improvement District (BID).

BID manager Christena Irvine said: “We are at the early stages of development at the moment but a Fair Isle-themed event will be run between 4th and 11th August this year. The event will coincide with the Nordic Textile Festival, the Viking Congress and Fiddle Frenzy.

“The outline plans include the launch of the street markets in Harrison Square, a bike race circuiting the town centre with participants wearing Fair Isle knitwear, music, themed window displays and bunting made by Shetland school children.

“When we floated the outline plans with businesses in the area, the response was really positive. Some brilliant ideas on how we can expand on this are coming in from the businesses.

“We are always happy to hear about new ways to make our events more exciting, so if anyone wants to feed in their comments; all they need to do is email me on [email protected] or use our Facebook page.

“There are a lot more activities which are planned for this event but they need approval before I can tell anyone what they are. All I can say at the moment is it looks like it’s going to be great fun for all ages and watch this space.”