The biggest free spectacle of the year is well under way in Waterford today as the sounds and colour of five continents flood the Viking streets. The city's three-day Spraoi festival, a carnival of open-air music and performance, will continue full-tilt until tomorrow night's dramatic fireworks finale. Growing in diversity and dimension every year since 1991, Spraoi is a street party on a grand scale. The core of Spraoi is unremitting rhythm and percussion, with diverse global influences, using the city itself as a huge stage. Performers from Japan, Ghana, Trinidad, London, the US and all over Ireland took part last year, and up to 35,000 people attended the final torchlight parade and firework show.
This year, new street performance groups have been enlisted, including the popular Streetwise from Belfast, a steel band from London, a trash percussion band from Liverpool, and Waterford's own Spraoi Drummers.
There is percussion from Africa, brass from India and folk music from the Americas, as over 500 performers from many exotic traditions fill the city with the images and atmosphere of carnival and surprise.
The festive drums have been echoing across the river and from the city's ancient walls since yesterday, and giant figures are in place on the rooftops. It is a family occasion, with all the elements of circus dominating the streets, and live music inside and outside the bars. Jugglers, clowns, acrobats, mime and magic will invite active audience participation.
A non-stop party on this scale requires meticulous planning and has been helped by strong local commercial sponsorship as well as by the Arts Council and Waterford Corporation.
Traditionally, the highlight has been the big street carnival of the final day, and tomorrow the city centre will be closed to traffic for several hours as the crowds gather to marvel at the costumes and constructions which have taken a year to prepare.
This is Spraoi's own show, a night-time parade through downtown Waterford to the Quay, on the theme of a circus of nightmares, with giant puppets, imaginative floats, and spectacular music and dance. It will be embellished by the pyrotechnics of a Fire and Light Fanfare designed by Theatre of Fire, before the festivities are crowned by a huge fireworks display.
Thousands of visitors from all parts of Ireland, Britain and Europe have descended on Waterford for this free-for-all party, and the city is determined to send them home stunned as well as sweating.