A free Kiama street art festival has been a labour of love for Tamara Campbell and Dave Evans for six years, until now.

From humble beginnings in 2011, this year’s KISS Arts Fest (formerly Kiama International Seaside Arts Festival) aims to put a spotlight on the town with the help of a $20,000 grant from Destination NSW.

New logos, new website, new advertising campaigns and paid professional help will hopefully boost numbers to the three day event across April 27 to 29 at Black Beach.

“One thing we did was to really put some foundations in place. Often when you start something as a passion project you miss out on a few of those key things in the beginning,” Campbell said.

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The beach will be transformed into a vibrant playground of international and local talent from break dancers to flamenco, cabaret to comedians, the world record holder for sword swallowing to a clairvoyant.

Campbell and Evans have spent 20 years working on European arts festivals during Australian winters, which is where the idea came from to plant a similar seed of culture in Kiama.

“It’s so amazing watching little towns all over the place turn into vibrant centres of interesting, artist endeavours but also great community spaces, like almost the whole town would come out to do these things,” Campbell said.

“Everyone was always happy and they felt a real sense of ownership. While the cultural engagement was important so was the community engagement and that feeling of the community coming out and being proud of something.

“We just felt it was something we really wanted to share with Kiama.”

She said the appeal of the festival is the mix of internationally renowned performers, local artists and grassroots community engagement.

For the full program CLICK HERE.  www.kissartsfest.com.au 

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The free festival suited to all ages kicks off on Friday April 27 with “Kabaret” at the Kazador Tent from 7pm. This gig is a paid show as acts include the 56 x Guinness World Record holding Sword Swallower The Space Cowboy.

Others on the lineup include French Canadian Acrobats Le Quateur Stomp, laughter therapy yoga with Coriandee, US break dancer Lil Will, plus local favourites Kiki Bittovabitsch and Nick Rheinberger (all who will also perform across the weekend).

From midday on Saturday and 10am on Sunday black beach is transformed with the family-favourite Circus Drop Zone with juggling, trapeze and unicycling; the Main Stage with various entertainment from musicians to comedians; market stalls; Lantern Parade at 7:30pm Saturday; and the Ray White Raft Race from 12pm Sunday.