Shetland Folk Festival and Music, Heritage and Rural Initiatives

The largest ticketed event in Shetland's cultural calendar, the 4 day extravaganza stages concerts the length and breadth of the Shetland Islands and has an infamous Festival Club, where sessions continue until the early hours of the morning.

Organised 100% by volunteers, celebrating Shetland's rich musical heritage is at the heart of the event but alongside our local performers, we invite acts from all over the world to share our concert platforms. The music the Festival programmes is well beyond the parameters of pure trad and folk, including bluegrass, blues, jazz, americana, fusion and even folk metal.

The Shetland Folk Festival's ticketed capacity is only around 10,000 though, so this is ultimately a small Festival BUT one with a huge reputation.

Music, Heritage and Rural Initiatives (MHARI) is a new venture that Mhari McLeman (Shetland Folk Festival's Artistic Lead) is now progressing alongside her voluntary programming role at the Festival. The current aspiration and focus of MHARI is to help strengthen the global presence of Shetland's culture and creativity, while remaining climate conscious. Utilising 25 years of experience in funding, project management and rural regeneration, the aspiration is to work with others in rural areas to drive forward cultural and community development projects that deliver impact, build resilience and raise profile. In particular, Mhari is really interested in collaborating with and learning from other remote music ecosystems, particularly in relation to exporting more of our cultural output.