The streets of Belfast fill with colour, dance and drumming during the Beat Summer Carnival. Organised by the tireless Beat Initiative, it includes a Carnival Parade and Party.

The parade starts along Royal Ave and moves along to Donegall Place, circles round City Hall, back to High St, and finishing in Custom House Square. It features carnival bands from Belfast, Brazil, Berlin, Ireland and Scotland. Special guests this year are Moleque, an ongoing ensemble of street kids from São Paulo that has been going since 1983.

The Carnival Party takes place at Black Box in the Cathedral Quarter, and features Moleque de Rua, Natty Wailer and the Reggae Vibes, Talking Drum, Chichambo, MacUmba and DJ Damo. At present there are no tickets left for the party, so they will be hard to come by.

It is an ideal means of promoting access for the many: linking beginners' participation directly with professional arts product and practitioners. In the week before the carnival there is a programme of workshops and other educational events. An important strategic element has been to bring the best arts practitioners from around Britain and Ireland to help establish new work and skills in Belfast, providing stimulating access for local people.

Working with Liverpool's Urban Strawberry Lunch and creating a close relationship with Manchester's Inner Sense, one of Britain's best samba bands, brought totally new skills to Belfast and helped the formation of a community samba workshop and Northern Ireland's first samba drumming band.

In September 1995, Belfast city centre was amazed and delighted when the first Belfast Carnival parade, Hayfever, with 350 participants, burst onto the streets. The annual project has created significant new arts awareness and access and the Carnival grew to involve 1,000 participants.

Source: http://travelguides.lastminute.com