Carrying miniature houses, drama students descended on a Medway park ahead of the upcoming Fuse Festival.

Performers from London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama brought their production of Rising Tide to Hillyfields, Gillingham.

The outdoor theatre experience is one of the many shows and performers to be seen in the festival that continues in Chatham and Rochester this weekend.

It’s a big moment for the organisers – Medway Council had decided to scrap the free family festival due to funding problems, but a campaign backed by the Medway Messenger led to an alternative plan on a reduced budget was agree.

The annual free family event takes place across the Towns with an art trail in Gillingham High Street, a street arts day in Chatham on Saturday, and Sunday is the Fuse Big Picnic in Rochester.

Among the performers heading to Medway this year are Spanish group Dudu and Cia who will be perfoming El Niu, a show about a clown with the soul of a bird.The performance will turn Chatham High Street into a lively makeshift stage and has previously been played in Spain, France, Belgium and Russia.

Two Belgian cyclists are bringing their Velodroom corr to Medway, but it all boils down to one question, who will win? V-man or V-boy?

In A Voyage Around My Bedroom by Eric MacLennan, the audience will be taken on a tour around a perspex cube containing the paraphernalia of an ordinary bedroom. It is at Chatham’s Military Road tomorrow and at Rochester Castle Gardens on Sunday between noon and 4.45pm.

Southpaw Dance Company is back with Faust – fusion of music and dance that taps into the spirit of 1920s gangsters and gamblers. It will be staged on Saturday at Military Road at 2.30pm and on Sunday at Boley Hill car park in Rochester at 4.15pm.

As well as the diversity of performers, there is also a open-top acoustic tour of the Towns on the Sonic Sharabang.

Temporarily transforming The Explore Medway Bus, Jane Pitt has created an audio-visual ride – for 25 minutes immerse your ears in sounds and tales recorded from the depths and banks of the River Medway mixed live with acoustic music.

The bus picks up at 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 3.30pm from Chatham bus station on Saturday, and from Corporation Street coach park, behind the visitor information centre, on Sunday.

The theme for this year’s festival is Welcome Home. Children and adults have helped create the artwork that will decorate Gillingham High Street for the festival. Look out for magical clocks, miniature ships, nesting birds, dancing silhouettes and ornate chandeliers on the High Street as part of the Welcome Home art trail until Sunday.

Contemporary artist Ktayoun Dowlatshahi also has an running exhibition at Rochester Art Gallery in the visitor information centre on Rochester High Street.

Visit fusefestival.org.uk for more information.