Circus, dance, performance art, street art, food, kids stuff and carnival. Across three days & nights only, Birmingham will become an intense creative playground/showcase for local arts of every flight of fancy and all almost entirely cost-free. The weekender will feature an explosion of original and entirely free musical events such as Clash of Drums music and firework spectacular at The hippodrome, Leon Trimble’s incredible Art Rave at the BMAG along with a dynamic and diverse array of live music, dance, workshops and DJ sets in Victoria Square with even Birmingham’s Symphony Orchestra turning New Street station into their very own artistic ‘platform’. Free family-friendly events include the outdoor Circus & Dance production Moon featuring mess, mayhem, aerial hoops and a giant quilt and a giant sized and a daytime Drink & Draw event at Birmingham Museum that goes on late into the night. Cerebral debate comes courtesy of the ‘Can Culture Change The World?’ series of talks at Java Lounge and Yorks coffee shops and the list of other events is extensive and extravagantly varied including everything from Skydancers to high wire artists above Birmingham’s famous landmarks to a South Asian style carnival complete with mechanical elephant and Birmingham Royal Ballet in the Bullring. One of the many cultural highlights of this event will be hosted rather aptly in St Phillips’ Cathedral grounds which will be transformed by the extravagantly ethereal and pertinently peculiar psycho-landscape of Influence Machine by Tony Oursler. An installation made up of seven video projects Oursler’s artwork is set to transform the Cathedral grounds into a fully immersive mind-altering work of environmental art. This epic-scale creative delight is but one of a series of ambitious, free, one-off alternative events set across various venues around the second city with the whole of Birmingham apparently opening its doors and free events happening everywhere across museums, theatres, clubs, shops, open spaces and even public transport. So even if you don’t intentionally seek out the city’s incredible arts playground, you might well find it discovers you. Just watch out for stray giant mechanical elephants…

Sat 22nd – Sun 24th Sep, various times & venues. Free. www.birminghamweekender.com

See our Weekender music picks preview here.

More free stuff to do this weekend here.