The month-long festival will end on August 31 as a dual celebration of Merdeka Day on the final day of the festival.
"We will start off the festival with a very exciting weekend as a precursor to more exciting events lined up throughout this whole month," said festival director Joe Sidek.
The first event to kick off the internationally recognised festival is the Creative Cities Forum that started at 9am today at The Royale Bintang Hotel.
The forum is a full day of discussions and talks about the key issues facing the region's creative community.
Key leaders in the Southeast Asian cultural scene attended the forum to discuss the future of creative design and infrastructure across the region.
The festival will be officially launched at the Dewan Sri Pinang with the opening of an art exhibition – Jaga II – curated by Balai Seni Visual Negara to be followed by the opening show, Circus Circus tonight.
Circus Circus is the festival's opening show where international performers from Japan, Finland, China and Thailand present a medley of sensational acrobatics teamed with cutting-edge technology for a circus show of a different kind.
The Circus Circus show will be held for three days between August 1 to August 3 and tickets are from RM20 onwards each.
An extension to last year's The Secret Gardens of Earthly Delights where a series of public installations were displayed at public spaces will also be launched this weekend.
The Secret Gardens of Earthly Delights II: The Chairs, to feature six sets of bespoke chairs designed to be quirky, functional pieces of public art, will be launched at the crossroads of Beach Street and Armenian Street on Saturday morning.
This year, the festival's colour theme is indigo so one of the main events is a month-long showcase of artworks, textiles, ceramics and objects from all over the world with one main link – the colour blue.
Mission Blue: The Indigo House will be featuring talks, workshops, pop-up shop, demonstrations and exhibitions of all things blue and indigo at the Mission House, a newly-restored heritage building along Farquhar Street from today until August 31.
For the first time ever since GTF debuted five years ago, the federal government is collaborating with the state government in making the event a success, Joe announced recently.
Malaysia Major Events, a division of Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) which is an agency under the Tourism and Culture Ministry, will be one of the major supporters of the festival.
"Tourism minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz is also expected to officiate the opening of the festival tonight," Joe said.
Joe also thanked all of the other sponsors and partners of the month-long festival such as E & O Hotel, Bayview Hotel, Cititel, Hotel Royal and Vistana along with MyTeksi for doing their part in ensuring the success of the festival.
The festival hosts world-class performances, cross-cultural collaborations and local community initiatives to highlight George Town's outstanding universal values as a world heritage site.
Find out more about the programmes lined up this month at www.georgetownfestival.com.
Source : http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/george-town-festival-kicks-off-today
