Harvest Arts

At the risk of glorifying alcohol consumption and appropriating a tagline, it really is so much more civilised to be able to go to a festival without being caged in a pen and forced to build makeshift beer bongs from mid-strength pre-mixes whilst pressed up against sweaty, flag-bearing, Southern-Cross-tattooed punters every time you want to exercise your age-given right to enjoy a mildly alcoholic beverage. (No offence to sweaty, flag-bearing festivalgoers with Southern Cross tattoos.)

Adding to the general sense of civil goodwill is that Harvest doesn't merely pay lip service to the arts with a few tired installations and graffiti demonstrations but devotes entire stages to sideshow antics, albeit that Brisbane gets a slightly scaled-back piece of the arts-related action.

The day starts soggy – a portent of things to come – but inside Le Boudoir the crowd is warm and the MC industrious enough to entice punters under the tent with some swift and impressive crowd-related visual trickery. The League Of Sideshow Superstars put on a hilarious show involving graphic descriptions of the internal workings of sword swallowing – apparently you must gain control over some reflexive muscle in the oesophagus, hold the sword in place and then release at will, just in case you were thinking of giving up your day job – and the irresistible Lilikoi Kaos does marvellous things with hula hoops. Many, many hula hoops.

Outside on the Cherrypicker Stage, Ice Cream Factory have set up shop and spend the day entertaining recuperating, moderately buzzed attendees with near-constant circus performers. The aforementioned Lilikoi Kaos makes a few appearances, which, incidentally, prove an effective way of telling the time if your watch, phone or sundial were rendered useless by the intermittent saturation.

Out and about Riverstage has been well-adorned with art, the swinging glitter heart being a favourite because, let's face it, everybody likes shiny things. Live performers pop up with unexpected spontaneity, which is inexplicably surprising considering one such procession includes a giant unicorn, performers beautifully doused in feathers and Queen Mab blowing glitter into faces. It's difficult to think of activities more surreal than riding a bath-tub pulled by fairies whilst flocked in gold dust and surrounded by human-birds. A highly recommended experience, if you're ever given the opportunity.

At approximately the time this writer battles a schnitzel-burger line and plans to make her way back to Le Boudoir, the sky blackens and we're calmly but emphatically told to stop what we're doing and evacuate the festival entirely. Thankfully, this shortens the schnitzel line dramatically. Credit to the organisers, who simply open up all the gates – such a civilised way to avoid injury – and let people flock to whatever coverage they can find while wind, hail, thunder and lightning put on a show impressive enough to threaten outdoing the other acts.

Unfortunately this makes it difficult to work out who's performing next, and we catch only the end of the next Boudoir set after the storm-related confusion. No doubt the full show is wonderful; the rest of the day, storm included, certainly is.

Sunday 18 November, City Botanic Gardens