A flashing fruit machine provided the ambient backing music for a soprano who was singing her heart out in the yard of the Kilkenny Design Centre. The Marble City was full of surprises such as the intriguing musical installation, Currency, as Kilkenny Arts Festival got underway over the weekend.
The streets are filled with face painters, buskers and henna tatooists while theatres and other less conventional venues are hosting everything from serious drama to whimsical comedy.
One of the hottest tickets in the festival is the theatrical adaptation of John Banville's novel The Book of Evidence, which is playing until Saturday at the Watergate Theatre.
Last night's performance by renowned Cuban singer Evelio Gala had been sold out for days. Sculpture at Kells, an international exhibition, is drawing huge crowds to the ruins of Kells Priory, 10 miles away. Even on the roadsides around the city there are wonders to behold, such as a wishing rag tree and a hay sculpture on the Ring Road entitled Bale Out.
Organisers say one of the biggest successes of the annual festival so far has been the Waterwall, an acrobatic spectacle by Italian group Materiali Resistenti performed on a 30ft wall of water to an original soundtrack by Domenico Mezztesta. Close to 2,000 attended the free performances on Friday night and on Saturday night when the traditional Irish summer provided a more familiar kind of water wall.
A substantial part of the festival budget this year has been given over to free theatre, according to festival director Maureen Kennelly.
"In terms of the structures we have around the city, the festival is a much more obvious one this year, we have come up a notch in the scale and sophistication of the free theatre we are providing," she said.
"Ticket sales for all events are way up and the local arts and business people say the buzz around the city is better than ever".
One of the main highlights, she said, was Sight Specific, an exhibition of paintings by seven major Irish artists, or those with Irish connections, showing throughout the festival in Market Yard car-park.
The Kilkenny Arts Festival began as a predominantly classical music celebration based around St Canice's Cathedral.
Over the years the range of events has broadened to encompass theatre, dance, music, craft and a particularly strong children's programme.
On Sunday night the festival finale, Voyage des Aquareves by Malabar, will see a ghost ship gliding through the city amid a pyrotechnic display and sea of bubbling foam. The festival continues until Sunday 18th.