Performers Info

Performing in Shetland

Shetland is the UK’s most northerly archipelago. It’s a unique and welcoming place with a population of around 23,000 people living across 16 inhabited islands. For more information about living and working here we can highly recommend Promote Shetland.

Shetland offers a truly unique performance experience. Opportunity to connect with enthusiastic, invested audiences, engage directly with the local community and perform in venues supported by our professional and friendly Shetland Arts team. You can immerse yourself in stunning landscapes, a rich and vibrant culture whilst performing in one of the UK’s most distinctive locations.

Our Venues

Around 11,500 people live within 30mins drive of Lerwick, where our main performance venues, Mareel (cinema, auditorium and cafe bar) and The Garrison Theatre are located. Our audiences may sometimes be smaller than those you are used to, but they are enthusiastic and invested, often making a real effort to attend and support live performances.

To give you a sense of scale, Shetland’s population is smaller than most mainland cities, which naturally affects audience numbers. In mainland terms, performing for 100 people here is the equivalent to selling hundreds, or even thousands of tickets elsewhere.

A 300-person audience at Mareel is equivalent to:

2,000 people in Inverness (Eden Court)
31,000 people in Edinburgh (Traverse)
47,000 people in Glasgow (Citizens Theatre)
104,000 people in London (Wembley area)

Based on population within 30 minutes’ travel time.

What matters most to us is bringing a broad range of creative activity to Shetland and the impact of the experience for both our audiences and visiting performers. It’s the power of the connection your creative work might make within the islands that is important.

Our community has many different reasons for visiting our venues and we have a ticketing relationship with about 70% of the households across Shetland which is mainly driven by our role as the cinema provider in the islands. This means we can help you reach most of the people who might want to see your show, ensuring your work is well promoted and supported.

Mareel is more than an arts venue, it also acts as a civic hub, where we host a local bank and serve as a place where people can recharge their electricity key meter. These functions are important to us and our communities.

Performance Costs

In order to plan with confidence and ensure you are compensated accordingly for the work you have created these are some of the practical costs to be considered when performing in Shetland.

Travel and accommodation are often more expensive than on the mainland. However you decide to travel, we recommend budgeting £600 per person for your return travel with one night’s accommodation. Additional nights’ can be around £200 per night depending on the time of year. Transfers from Sumburgh airport to Lerwick cost around £80 per trip.

We are a proud Real Living Wage employer that also provides access to a Local Government Pension Scheme for all our employed staff. Your show is supported not just by front of house staff but also by our administration, finance, maintenance and marketing teams to make sure everything runs smoothly. Typical staffing costs for a show at Mareel, including two Technicians for an 8-hour day and additional Customer Service support, are around £500. We also commit around £250 in marketing costs (including time).

Running a venue in a remote location comes with higher fixed costs including energy, insurance, water, maintenance and other overheads. We estimate the fixed cost to be around £1000 per show at Mareel – this could be as much as 20%-40% more than elsewhere in Scotland, due to our location. Funding we receive from Creative Scotland and The Shetland Charitable Trust help us to mitigate these costs to make performing here more accessible.

Travel

Getting to Shetland is part of the adventure and there are two main ways to reach us; by sea or by air.

Sea

The overnight ferry from Aberdeen takes around 12 hours, arriving in Lerwick around 7am. The return leg leaves Lerwick at 5pm or 7pm (depending on whether you are stopping in Orkney or not).

Arriving early is a chance to explore a bit of Shetland before you access the venue or your accommodation. We usually plan for performers to have access to the venue from 4pm, earlier access can be discussed with additional staffing costs.

We’re happy to provide you with space to work (WiFi available) or even give you free tickets to the cinema if you would like to watch a film before your performance checks.

Air

Direct flights to Shetland are available from Inverness, Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen. Flight times are around an hour, and some flights may stop in Orkney. There is potential for weather delays, so it’s important to bear this in mind when you are planning your travel to and from the islands.

Transfer from Sumburgh Airport to Lerwick takes around 50mins by taxi, should be booked in advance and costs around £80.

Getting around the isles

Inter-island travel is usually done by ferry, although flights are available to smaller islands such as Fair Isle and Foula. When planning show times, we recommend finishing (including encores) by 10pm to enable most audience members to get home. Those travelling outwith Lerwick, may need to leave slightly earlier to catch the last ferry, please don’t be upset by this – it’s a testament to their commitment to see you!

Environmental Considerations

For those who want to limit your carbon impact, the ferry may not be the most appropriate solution. This link takes you to some publicly available information to help inform your choice. Shetland News Article

Performers have a variety of pressures and responsibilities, and we would encourage you to make the right travel choice for you. Shetland Arts is committed to being carbon neutral in our work by 2030 and have successfully halved our own carbon footprint over the last ten years.

Mareel is also fitted with energy-efficient LED lighting throughout, including motion-sensor lighting to minimise unnecessary energy use. We provide recycling bins and free water stations are available. These measures are part of our ongoing approach to managing resources responsibly and supporting environmentally conscious performers and productions.

Deals

All proposals are reviewed by the Mareel team to assess how they fit with our programme and social outcomes. As we take a team approach, please allow some time for these discussions to take place.

We are happy to discuss and explore almost any way of working with you that you can dream up and that best suits your show.

We can take the whole risk and pay your fees and cover all additional costs. This approach works well if we anticipate smaller box office numbers or when your work increases the diversity of our programme. Fees for this model typically range from

£200-£400 per performer, with travel days negotiable. We want to make your visit as smooth as possible, which usually takes the format of arriving the day of the performance and returning the next.

Alternatively, you can hire our venues, which can maximise your payout. Our hire deal is heavily subsidised and is set on a sliding scale depending on the box office income you generate. Contact programmer for additional information.

In between are a variety of risk share agreements, first calls, second calls, fixed fees vs percentages and so on.

We want to make your show happen and ensure you are appropriately paid while supporting our venues’ financial sustainability. We have limited resources, so working closely with performers is key to creating arrangements that are mutually beneficial and allow us to continue to bring a broad range of exciting work to Shetland.

Accessibility

Mareel has full disabled access, including lift access throughout, disabled parking spaces in the adjacent car park and two wheelchairs are available on site if required.

We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment and are happy to discuss access requirements in advance to support visiting performers and productions.

We’re committed to accessibility in both our buildings and online. Our website meets WCAG 2.2 AA standards to ensure it is inclusive for everyone.

Additional Performance and/or Workshop Opportunities

As well as your performance, we would encourage you to consider offering:

a workshop
school performance
care home visit
talks
Q&A

Please let us know, in our initial discussions, if you have any additional performance or workshop ideas so we can consider your offer in the round. We aim to maximise the impact of every performance, so we focus on a single show to bring the largest, most engaged audience together. If multiple performances work better for you, that can be discussed.

We look forward to welcoming you to Shetland, to showcase your work to our community.

See you soon.