Sma’ Shot Day

Paisley’s annual Sma’ Shot day event will take place this year…but not as you know it.

For the first time, a full programme of online events and activities will take place to celebrate this historical date in our town’s calendar.

The online event will take place on Saturday 4 July – the weavers and their families traditionally always took their holidays on the ‘first Saturday of the Fair’.

The Sma’ Shot holiday takes its name from a famous dispute between the local shawl weavers and manufacturers in the 19th century. In 1856, following a long dispute, the manufacturers backed down and an agreement was reached to pay for the Sma’ Shot, the invisible stitch which bound the Paisley shawls, with a new table of prices published on 1 July 1856.

This year’s event will not only mark this important date in the town’s history but will also celebrate our fantastic key workers today.

What’s happening?

We’ll kick things off with a mass online drum-off – you are all invited to come together and make noise to mark the start of the day’s celebrations!

We will have a range of activities from film, dance and music, to spoken word performances by members of the local community and online tutorials and workshops.

Aerial dance theatre company All or Nothing will have a dance and music project called Connecting Threads, inspired by the background and history of Sma’ Shot. They’ll be inviting local groups and individuals to get involved, setting creative tasks and asking people to submit videos for a short film that will be published online on Sma’ Shot Day.

Local upcycled fashion innovators ReMode will be showing you how to take inspiration from workers of the past, present and future to design and create a costume to wear on the day to get fully-immersed in the day’s events. They’ll also get crafty with pattern to create some fantastic displays to decorate their windows.

Local theatre company PACE are developing some exciting new work for Sma’ Shot Day as well delivering online drama workshops for young people.

Young people involved with CREATE will be collaborating with local musician Michael Cassidy to produce a piece of music to be included as part of a film showcased on the day.

We’ve also got Renfrewshire Leisure and The Bungalow partnering up for the Sma’sh Hits Sma’ Shot Special music event, showcasing a selection of local musicians.

More to come …

There are still more events and activities taking place on Sma’ Shot Day still to be announced and there will be plenty of opportunities for people to get involved in the lead up to the event.

The change to this year’s event does unfortunately mean that the planned Colours of the Cart performance, supported by the Year of Coasts and Waters 2020 events fund, managed by EventScotland, is no longer able to take place.