On a lovely sunny Saturday morning the Children’s Parade was a really amazing start to things. The Brighton Festival team, the mayor and I started the parade, leading from the front for a few streets, then we went and watched from the side, wonderful, it made the hairs on my neck stand up. That evening was the first performance of my show Sun which opened the Festival and we had a big party afterwards. Not only that but it was my 39th birthday so it was a triple celebration. I didn’t feel rough on Sunday, though.

Wim Vandekeybus (b. 1963) is the man behind Ultima Vez, a theatrical-choreographic powerhouse in Brussels. With his guidance they have sped to the forefront of European multi-media performance with such works as Monkey Sandwich, Oedipus/Bêt Noir, NieuwZwart and Booty Looting, each combining music, dance, visual arts and theatre in different ratios to startling effect.

The UK premiere of Dmitry Krymov’s Opus No.7 begins at 5pm. When it finishes two and half hours later, a sun-dappled evening is bustling with the opening weekend of the Brighton Festival. At a nearby pub friends ask, “What was it like? What was it about?” For once I am lost for words. Describing Opus No.7 is akin to conveying an emotionally moving dream which, laid out prosaically, becomes gibberish. The production is as much performance art happening as theatre, zapping the brain with a concatenation of imagery, like a Quay Brothers animation brought to life.

Yinka Shonibare MBE makes work from a less entrenched position than his many decorations suggest. This Member of the British Empire (he adopted the initials as part of his name after receiving the honour in 2005) is naturally also a Royal Academician, an Honorary Fellow of Goldsmiths, and has an honorary doctorate from the RCA. Shonibare is one of the most celebrated artists around, a fixture as well received as the ship in a bottle which occupied the Fourth Plinth in 2010 and which now has a permanent home outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Dmitry Krymov (b 1954) is one of Russia’s most groundbreaking and celebrated contemporary theatre directors and set designers. Performances by his “Theatre Laboratory” are renowned for combining multimedia with art installation techniques to surprise and thrill audiences across Europe and as far afield as New York.

Andrew Comben, CEO of the Brighton Festival, has agreed to reveal to theartsdesk his favourite moments from previous Festivals. “Looking backwards,” he ventures, sat in his office around the corner from the Pavilion, “is not a luxury I tend to indulge in as my head is so focused on this year, next year and 2016. Then again, it’s an enjoyable wrench, a fun exercise."

Israeli-born choreographer Hofesh Shechter has had a meteoric rise. Ten years ago, he was a dancer in somebody else’s company who had just taken a couple of steps into choreography. Now he has his own full-time company, can pack out Sadler’s Wells twice a year, and gets invited to stage his creations for top international companies like Nederlands Dans Theater.

The Brighton Festival announced its 2014 programme today at a launch helmed by guest director Hofesh Shechter. The choreographer, dancer and musician oversees three weeks packed with 448 performances and 147 events in 34 venues across the south coast city, including 37 premieres. The hugely eclectic programme of music, theatre, dance, circus, art, film, debate and family events runs from 3^rd to 25^th May and includes a performance of Schechter’s own rousing Sun (with an exclusive "Director’s cut", Sun Dust).

At one point during the show Bill Bailey makes an aside about the last words of biologist JBS Haldane which were, according to the comedian, a comment about God having an “inordinate fondness for beetles". He then goes into a routine about deathbed quotations and the likelihood of coming out with a corker then having a snooze and muttering a mundanity just before you croak.

Charity gigs, by their very nature, are usually jolly affairs, and Brighton Comedy Festival’s opening gala at the Dome was no exception. It had a stellar line-up, but also the advantage of being hosted by Alan Carr (the patron of The Sussex Beacon, in whose aid it was given) who was, like most of the guests, on cracking  form.