We’re proud, honoured, flattered and very, very grateful to have been shortlisted for this year’s Reading Cultural Awards.

The Reading Cultural Awards, which celebrate the best of Reading’s artistic and cultural scene, have announced their 38 finalists – the events, organisations and artists that have made Reading such a great place to live, work and do business over the past 12 months.

We’re very pleased to say that we’ve been named as finalists in three categories this year – Cultural Space of the Year, Cultural Organisation of the Year, and Cultural Partnership of the Year for our contribution to Zap Magazine.

Cultural Space of the Year celebrates dedicated arts venues or unusual spaces used for art, recognising the diversity of great places to enjoy and perform art and cultural activities in Reading. Also shortlisted are the Museum of English Rural Life and The Oracle Shopping Centre.

Cultural Organisation of the Year looks to reward an organisation that has demonstrated consistently high standards in terms of output and engagement. Our fellow finalists are Reading Between the Lines theatre company and Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra.

Partnership of the Year looks at excellence in partnership working, like businesses working with arts organisation(s) or arts partnerships, education and so on. We’re named alongside partners Real Time Video, Spectrum Arts, Neile Wright, Our Time Video, Move Up project for our partnership on Zap Magazine. And we’re up against Reading Libraries, Reading Rep, Oxford Playhouse, Jelly and Reading College for Alby the Penguin Saves Christmas and South Street Arts Centre, Department of Film, Theatre & Television at University of Reading, the Barbados and Friends Association of Reading (BAFA) and Reading School for Being Gordon Greenidge.

We’re also very pleased to see many of our partner organisations being shortlisted in various categories – Reading International for Visual Arts Event of the Year, and Are You Listening? Festival for Festival of the Year, which we helped support and play a small part towards. And there’s plenty of other great people, places and events up for awards this year – it really is good company to be in!

Organised by Reading UK, the Reading Cultural Awards champion the many great organisations and artists that put their creative hearts and souls into Reading. The awards ceremony takes place on Wednesday 27th June and we’ll be there, dressed up to the nines, to see all the worthy winners being crowned. It’ll be nice to bring an award home, but it really is an honour just being nominated…