ORGANISERS are confident they can exceed last year's 50,000 spectators at Great Yarmouth's third Out There festival next month.The festival of street arts and circus will be launched on Thursday, September 16, with a special tribute to the Tour of Britain cyclists passing through the town on that day.

ORGANISERS are confident they can exceed last year's 50,000 spectators at Great Yarmouth's third Out There festival next month.

The festival of street arts and circus will be launched on Thursday, September 16, with a special tribute to the Tour of Britain cyclists passing through the town on that day.

Leading French street arts company Generik Vapeur will take to two wheels themselves and bring mayhem to the Market Place from 11am as rural bike-riding policemen.

The main festival events will then be focused on St George's Park during two packed days over the weekend of September 18 and 19.

Generik Vapeur will perform their riotous show, Bivouac, for the first time in Britain and comic trio Chamboule Toutheatre and two of the original three founders of the free-running phenomenon with their company, Urban Playground, will also be making an appearance from France.

Other zany street acts will include The Great Dave, a juggler obsessed with the English tradition of tea, doing amazing things with tea cups and saucers; Granny Turismo, Britain's only formation shopping trolley team; Shay Horay, the rubberband boy famed for facial contortions; and Shirlee Sunflower, bringing quirky acrobatic stunts.

Tumble Circus will be coming all the way from Thailand to perform on a seven metre high trapeze rig while Norfolk young people will be performing urban arts acts, including breakdancing, on the Slam Stage.

Workshops to learn the art of free running will be held on the evenings of September 16 and 17, and anyone wanting to take part is invited to call Laurie Miller-Zutshi on 01493-846187.

David Jones, a spokesman for festival organisers SeaChange Arts, said: “Local people have been getting involved in lots of other ways, working with local artists to make everything from mobiles, flags and banners that will hang in the park to a bicycle-powered windmill.”

Out There has been developed with the support of the Zepa network, an innovative EU-funded project partnering nine major French and English festivals.