Last here in 2015, the upcoming circus and freak show extravaganza will feature both international and local artists, including Ballarat performers.

Mr Huntly came to Ballarat to study drama himself in the late 1980s, and fell in love with the city.

“I came there in 1987, and I enjoyed it so much I didn’t leave until 1996,” he says.

“I loved the art scene, the music and the art. It was the years of the Bridge Mall Inn.”

As a person with a lifelong interest in performing, Shep Huntly decided to study acting at what was then the Ballarat College of Advanced Education (now Federation University), where he was taught stilt walking and juggling.

This brought him to the world of the circus and street performance. From there it was only a short matter of time before he discovered the ‘visceral world’ of the freak show.

“It was Edinburgh, I think 1997. It changed my world – the risks these people were taking are real, the response from the audience is 100 per cent, we’re all feeling this in the same space –  it was just a little bit more real than the circus, more hard and exciting” Mr Huntly says.

“It was the most applause you could get short of being a rock star.”

One of the attractions of the freak show is the opportunity it offers to those who are different to mainstream society to fit into their own world, or a world of their own making, say Mr Huntly.

In the past, people of short stature, or of great height, or who were regarded in any way to be ‘freakish’ often struggled to exist. They were rejected as blighted or sinful or simply turned away.

Mr Huntly says the world of the side and freak show offered them an existence, even if it was later to be seen as exploitative.

“General Tom Thumb, who was one of the most famous sideshow performers in the world, a little person – he performed on that stage in the Mechanics’ Institute in the 1870s. So there’s a history here of these performances,” he says.

Some of the performers in this year’s festival include Emma Jay Hawkins and Paddy Bath, both of whom hail from Ballarat originally.

Emma Hawkins will be appearing in ‘The Wild Women of Sideshow’, a performance celebrating the strength of female showpeople. International acts include the Norwegian legend The Headmaster and Canadian duo Monsters of Schlock.

The festival is at the BMI from May 11-13.