Waterford is bracing itself for an influx of up to 40,000 visitors from home and abroad as the city prepares to host the 22nd annual Spraoi festival.

This year's festival, which began last night and runs until Sunday night, draws its inspiration from WB Yeats and his poem The Stolen Child with its memorable line To the Waters and the Wild.

Spraoi director TV Honan explained that this year's theme was a celebration of Irish nature including native fauna as well as mythology including the Celtic festival of Lughnasadh.

“The spectacle will see the ancient Celtic deity, Lugh, return to lure people away from their normal and structured present to a time and place of wild abandonment,” he said

“We think it will peak on Sunday night as 35,000-40,000 [people] for the parade with hundreds of costumed performers and natured theme floats and fireworks.”

Mr Honan revealed that this year's Spraoi, in addition to Irish acts, will include performers from the UK, US, Belgium, Spain, France, Argentina, New Zealand and Sierra Leone.

Street talent

“We’re very excited about a band called Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars – they have performed on

Oprah

and are inspirational and are hugely acclaimed for rising phoenix-like from the ashes of war.

“And I’m also looking forward to Nest – New Emerging Street Talent – this is where Spraoi has taken three young Irish street theatre acts under its wing, two months ago, to develop new shows.

"They will premiere those shows at the Spraoi festival and [will then] play at the Out There festival in Great Yarmouth and the National Circus Festival in Tralee later this year," he said.

"It's Spraoi's new R&D project with our new partners in the UK and Ireland where we hope to take new acts, bring them to the first stage of development and then bring them out to the wider world."

Among the many other street theatre acts are acrobats manoAmano; innovative circus act Joli Vyann; and David Moreno, who will sing and play piano floating six metres in the air. Visit spraoi.com for more