Sometimes I don't recognise this place any more.

I know, I keep going on about this; perhaps there's a song in it. Tauranga has changed: once it was quiet, now for the third week running I'm previewing a huge event.

It's a one-day festival on Saturday March 9, an event of such scale that even just listing everyone performing would take more space than I have.

We're talking the Tauranga Fringe Festival 24, happening at the Historic Village, which promises six stages as well as six galleries, with over sixty performances across seven hours.

This is another extravaganza spearheaded by The Incubator, the arts collective which has brought new live to the Village. They promise a “one-day spectacular, full of strange creativity, alternative art practices, the bizarre, the beautiful, the risqué, the provocative, and above all stimulating sensationalism.” Yeah, Baby!

There is, no surprise, a lot of everything. I'll stick to the music but there's a special pottery installation at The Pot House and the other galleries all feature very cool stuff. There's also a fashion parade with WOW leanings, plus market stalls, food, steampunks, busking...

OK. Six stages. They're all a bit different: the Earthly Delights Stage incorporates the bar and several DJs grooving; the Amphitheatre Stage is a family disco; but the other four are where things get really fringey...

The Cinema Stage (guess where?) features poets. Lots of them. And some comedians. The section for deliberately bad poetry is I assume where the two disciplines collide. There's also music, including the Inth'way Mangosteen Experience - “full-on trippy dynamic multimedia psychedelic electric guitar and spoken word.”

The Village Green Stage runs the musical gamut from indie bands Crooked Finger and Taupo's False Heights to student drumming group Hittmen and early traditional blues from Mike Garner and Joanne Melbourne, who have just released an old-timey EP. And more of course.

The main street's Underwater Stage is similarly varied. There an improvised African session from The Afrolites, Kokomo shooting a new video, futurist disco from Hamilton's Amun Ra, barber's shop quartet Pitchpipe Playboys, a short David Mamet play performed by Bren Frank, dub and ska from No-Reply Band, and also Brother Sister, Captain Houndtooth, Project Eye and more...

On to The Chapel Stage (guess where?) which leans towards the punkier hardcore end of the scene with We Will Ride Fast, Stone Clones, Jim Jones and the People's Temple, Skonk, new band The Metrognomes, and Dead Simple. Those last two are also playing a week later at the Jam Factory (March 16).

And finally, on to the Jam Factory Stage (guess where?) which is a real grab-bag, including poets, an X-rated performance from wittily-named Sharkrablue, rock from The Artist Red, very impressive experimental band Club Meds, plus Deep C, Junk and more.

So... much... music... All for $10. Under-14s free. And I've missed a bunch. Sorry. I suggest indulging as fully as possible. Some may be great, some may be crap – it'll all be interesting.

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