Stop the traffic! The Octagon is being blocked off today and turned into a sea of chalk.
Chalktagon will convert the city centre into a colossal canvas at 10am and people of all ages and art levels are welcome to join in until the chalk dust settles at 2pm.
There will even be Otago Polytechnic School of Art students on hand to help you turn your doodles into da Vincis.
As chalk and rain don't mix very well (and clouds were hanging ominously over the city last night), the event will be held tomorrow if the sky cries.
If it also rains tomorrow, well ... we're in trouble.
The Otago Farmers Market becomes the Otago Festival Market today, when some of this year's acts will be serving up cameos among the bacon butties and whitebait patties.
It's Comrade Z at 9am, Monkey Business at 9.30am and Fuse Circus at 10am.
The Anglicans also get in on the act at 7pm tomorrow with a series of readings at St Paul's Cathedral to celebrate the start of the festival.
"Spirited Conversations" will feature readings by opera singer and artist Patricia Payne, Fortune Theatre artistic director Lara Macgregor and University of Otago theatre arts lecturers Stuart Young and Lisa Warrington.
The Anglican Dean of Dunedin, the Rev Dr Trevor James, described the service to me yesterday as "a continuing conversation between the arts and faith".
"Both traverse the same territory, continue to ask very similar questions and engage the deep creative power of the imagination," he said.
The festival fun is now well under way, tickets to many events starting to go like hot cakes.
"We just sold over 1000 tickets in a single day and people are starting to ring up because they're worried that they're going to miss out," festival director Alec Wheeler told me last night.
I popped along to the risky and risque Revolver at Sammy's last night and caught some of comedian Paul Barrett's hilarious adventures as a piano player with Tourette's syndrome at the HMNZS Toroa hall. It was completely sold out.
Later, I joined a busy opening night crowd to enjoy gentlemen of jazz the Nairobi Trio at the Late Night Festival Club on the second floor of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
The festival club has had some ups and downs in previous years, but it certainly won't this year.
The art gallery lift broke down yesterday and is likely to be out of commission for the duration of the festival.
Tonight, King Leo and the Growling Dogs sing the blues, while tomorrow brings jazz noir exponents Karin Reid and the Bill Martin Quartet.
Give them a hand as they're lugging their gear up the stairs.
