A cannon fired beside the Robbie Burns statue at 1pm created such a blast that it set off car alarms in the vicinity.
It would be hard not to know the Fringe is back in town.
More than 300 artists and 50 acts will parade their talents through Dunedin over the next 10 days.
"The quality this year is exceptional," festival director Paul Smith said at the launch yesterday.
"Dunedin is a wonderful artist city and the Fringe is a wonderful platform for these artists."
Deputy mayor Syd Brown rang the traditional Fringe bell to signify the opening of the festival.
However, that did not go exactly to plan, as someone had forgotten to remove the paper padding around the clapper.
As hang-drum exponent Dr Glam observed with a smile: "This is the Fringe. Expect the unexpected."
However, Dr Glam, whose alter-ego is University of Otago music lecturer Ian Chapman, was not laughing for long.
"I've just realised . . . I've got to go to a marketing lecture and then a staff meeting after this and I haven't got time to go home and get changed," he said with a groan.
Chicago performance artist and HBO Def poet Nikki Patin has made the trip from the United States to appear in the Dunedin festival.
"It's my first time out of the country and I love it here. You have made me a convert for life," she said at yesterday's launch.
"New Zealand has totally ruined me for other countries."
Patin was invited to the festival after organisers saw a video of her performing on YouTube and will present her show, The Phat Grrrl Revolution, at the Fortune Theatre Studio until Sunday.
Dunedin Fringe Festival chairman Warren Taylor said the festival had benefited from its metamorphosis as a companion to the two-yearly Otago Festival of the Arts to an annual event.
"The general consensus is that this timing is really good. It fits in with everything else going on," he said.
The Seek Dance Crew also gave a preview of its Eye of a Dancer hip-hop show at the Globe Theatre, before the fun moved to the lower Octagon for busking.
The Teutonic Rocky Horror Das Roq Opera opened at the Globe Theatre last night and will finish tomorrow.
The Metonymic Trust's Lines of Flight Experimental Music and Film at Chicks Hotel in Port Chalmers also opened last night.
Featuring the Dead C, it is a must-see before it also finishes tomorrow night.
"Getting the Dead C is a total coup for us," Mr Smith said.
"It's going to be an amazing event. These are people stretching the boundaries of instruments and music."
I saw Song Media's romantic gothic cabaret Portraits - The Woman Outside at the Fortune Theatre Studio last night. Stunning.
Get along before it finishes on Sunday.
The Fringe Festival Comedy Club also fired up last night at XII Below with irreverent Auckland comedian Te Radar's Eat the Dog show and Wellington comedians Benjamin Crellin and the Comediettes.
The fun continued afterwards with the nightly Festival Club, where you can meet and relax with Fringe performers and give them advice on their acts . . .
Keep an eye out for digital cameras lying around the city, which are a component of the interactive Digital Shadows event.
The disposable cameras will be left in various public locations daily, before being regathered and the images posted on the internet.
German artist Sylvia Schwenk's X Performance Dunedin in the Octagon today should hit the spot.
Schwenk will form a giant "X" in the Octagon using the bodies of willing participants.
The X-rated fun starts at 1pm at the Regent Theatre.
Schwenk's work will also be exhibited at the Blue Oyster Gallery throughout the Fringe Festival.
One of the lovely things about the Fringe is the way it brings different parts of the commmunity together.
Artists from Studio 2 @ Bond Street, an art studio for people with disabilities, have created works of art which will be installed in prominent public spaces around the city.
The Dunedin Fringe Festival is back. Get out and enjoy the fun.
Today's programme
Daily: Outside Art (random locations)
Daily: Digital Shadows (random locations)
Daily: Under the Overbridge (cnr Jetty and Vogel Sts)
9am-3pm: Devolution #1 and Thus I spoke Silence (streets of Dunedin)
10am until late: Signs & Wonders (Alibi bar and restaurant)
11am-1.30pm: A Recipe for Mock Turtle Soup (Botanic Gardens)
Noon: Lunchtime Street Performance (Ltd Festival Kiosk, Octagon)
Noon: Slim Pickens (Octagon or streets of Dunedin)
1pm: X Performance Dunedin (Octagon)
2pm: Slim Pickens (Octagon or streets of Dunedin)
4pm-5pm: Fringe Inventions: An exhibition of Chindogu (DPAG)
5.30pm: Devolution #1 and Thus I spoke Silence (Blue Oyster Gallery)
6pm: Te Radar - Eat the Dog (at the XII Below lounge bar)7pm: Portraits: The Woman Outside (Fortune Theatre Studio)
7.30pm: The Comediettes (XII Below lounge bar)
7.30pm: Underground Renaissance (Mary Hopewell Theatre)
7.30pm: Eye of a Dancer (Globe Theatre) 8pm: Last Postcard from Cuba (Arc Cafe)
8pm: One Day (Allen Hall rehearsal studio)
8pm: The Latest Freed Man: A Puppet Play (Purple Rain basement)
8.30pm: The Phat Grrrl Revolution (Fortune Studio)
9pm: Benjamin Crellin - Apocalypse Soon! (XII Below lounge bar)
9pm: Das Roq Opera (Globe Theatre)
9pm: Lines of Flight (Chicks Hotel)
9pm: Bigups Yourself (Sammys)
10.30pm: Festival Club (XII Below lounge bar)
