Hazard: Expect the unexpected

A giant trout in the Piccadilly fountain. Performing traffic cones. Intrepid explorers navigating the city's waterways. If you're asked if you saw anything interesting in town this Saturday, you might be accused of being on drugs. But even the most straight-thinking visitors to the city centre will witness some strange goings-on, thanks to this year's Hazard festival.

Shop windows, city squares, canals and street corners will play host to surprising, risqué and outrageous performances. Unsettling behaviour will be par for the course.

With a band of unnamed 'performance activists' bringing live art to surprising locations at random moments, hungover shoppers will have more to gaze vacantly at than the bargains in TK Maxx.

Hazard is Manchester's micro-festival of incidental intervention and sited performance. An afternoon of chance encounters and risky ventures, it aims to reclaim the city in the name of art. There'll be a giant interactive game in Cathedral Gardens, and mayhem and mischief on Market Street (no change there then) with an invasion by burlesque mannequins. Shop windows, city squares, canals and street corners will play host to surprising, risqué and outrageous performances. Unsettling behaviour will be par for the course.

Garfield Allen, Artistic Director of Green Room, is one of the organisers. “Hazard is all about interaction with people,” he explains. “It's about showing the public that live art isn't something inaccessible and esoteric that happens behind closed doors, but can be funny, thought-provoking and inspiring.

Our aim is for it to be virtually unmissable, turning the whole city centre into live art – performances that just appear for brief instants in the most unexpected of places.”

Hopefully, the fact that we're briefing you about the japes in advance won't take away the element of surprise. Let's face it, if a traffic cone starts singing to you as you cross town on Saturday, it probably won't matter whether you were expecting it or not. Your afternoon will still be more memorable than most.