| Festival Facts | Brighton Festival is England's largest arts festival There are over 2 thousand performances spread across hundreds of venues throughout the city. There are hundreds of free performances throughout the duration of the festival both day and night. |
The festival always kicks off with the Children’s Parade. This year it will take place on Saturday 6th May at 10.30am. It is the culmination of months of frenetic activities in schools across Brighton and Hove.
The exotic range of costumes and floats mingling with Samba bands and dancers is always an exciting start to the celebrations and this year it ends up on the seafront where over 4,000 children will sing the specially commissioned 40th Brighton Festival song: City by the Sea.
The song was written by West-End musicals writer Stephen Clark and Mark Chadwick of Brighton band The Levellers.
 | | Billy Childish - Gardner Arts |
Zap Art’s Streets of Brighton is the UK’s biggest celebration of street art. Dot Comedy have created a maze of work based around fairy tales and myths which will take place in the North Laine. dotMaze encourages you to go along and GET LOST! from Friday 12th and Saturday 13th May between 1pm and 5pm. This Beautiful World’s production Imperfect Harmony explores the transformational possibilities of music with over 200 local amateur and professional singers and musicians on The Level on Saturday 13th May from 5.15pm until 6pm.
 | | So what are your words? |
A selection of shows will be sprouting up all over the city so be prepared. Big Splash is a two day extravaganza with a nautical theme. Jugglers, Rollerbladers and fire-breathing mechanical horses will take over every corner of the Marina on Saturday 27th May and Sunday 28th May from 1pm-6pm. Group F is a pioneering group of pyrotechnicians. Their 40th festival show The Light Players takes place in Preston Park on Saturday 13th May. The show draws inspiration from visions of the Earth from above and will set the park ablaze. As well as the varied programme of entertainments in the Streets of Brighton line up there are hundreds of Open Houses scattered across the city.
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery have a Rex Whistler exhibition on during the festival and Fabrica has artist Catherine Bertola showing her work. Gardner Arts centre has an exhibition of cult seventies-punk revolutionary Billy Childish. The exhibitions are all free and there are programmes of talks and events accompanying some of them. With a wide range of free events available throughout the historic city it promises to be an interesting month. | 
