PARKOUR free-runners and fashion fans will flock to Glasgow's cultural quarter for this year's Merchant City Festival.

PARKOUR free-runners and fashion fans will flock to Glasgow's cultural quarter for this year's Merchant City Festival.

The seventh annual festival, launched today, is set to scale new heights in making the buzzing area Glasgow's artistic hub.

The four-day event will feature parkour performers running freestyle over some of the area's architectural gems, while a glamour catwalk show and designer label shopping extravaganza are poised to enhance the city's style credentials.

A packed programme of 200 events at over 70 venues builds on the success of last year's festival, which attracted more than 40,000 people to everything from theatre and comedy to outdoor music and children's workshops.

Once again, the Evening Times is media partner of the festival, which runs from Thursday, September 25 until Sunday, September 28.

Festival director Neil Butler of UZ Events said: "The ambition is to represent what's really happening in Scottish arts and culture.

"It gives the opportunity for people who perhaps don't go into the Merchant City so often to see what great events are going on there throughout the year, the great food, bars, galleries and the fashion shops as well."

Performances by national companies, including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Opera, are complemented by a host of street theatre performers from across Europe.

Highlights from the visiting companies include Brighton-based parkour specialists Prodigal Theatre staging gravity-defying performances in Merchant Square, Austria's Christian Eisenberger recreating a famous wartime Vietnam photograph in George Square, and Liz Aggiss' anarchic Guerilla Dances, which have earned her the reputation as the Vivienne Westwood of the dance world.

The festival received £110,000 in funding from Glasgow City Council to create the 2008 programme.

Councillor Bailie Gordon Matheson said: "I am especially pleased with the standard of the street artists who have been attracted from across the world to this year's Festival, and with the quality of the work we will see and hear from both local and national arts companies."

Live music forms a core element of the programme, with outdoor stages providing the soundtrack to the street theatre. There will be stages in Bell Street, John Street, King Street and Brunswick Street, while the late-night festival club moves to the Victorian Bar within the Tron Theatre for the duration of the festival.

On stage, actress Una McLean will star in the world premiere of Ioanna Anderson's bittersweet new play Six Acts of Love, (The Tron, Fri, Sep 26-Sat, Oct 11). Directed by the theatre's new chief Andy Arnold, it tells of a middle-aged women deserted by her husband and coping with her mother's illness.

Having made a big impression at the West End Festival in 2007, Polish-born cleaner turned concert pianist Aleksander Kudajczyk will give a one-off performance at St Andrew's In The Square (Fri, Sep 26).

The Merchant City Festival has earned its style stripes over the years, attracting the likes of Yasmin Le Bon and daughter Amber, who have both modelled in previous catwalk shows. This year's runway show Brand New You're Retro Catwalk Show (Sat Sep 27) in aid of ChildLine in Scotland is also expected to lure a clutch of celebrity models to showcase cutting-edge garments by up-and-coming designers.

The fashion event at Byblos nightclub beneath Merchant Square also features a Glasgow Craft Mafia market.

Meanwhile, retail therapy once again goes avant garde in the Ingram Street Shopping Day (also Sep 27) as models, music and refreshments help bring the autumn collections to life.

This year's festival also boasts great comedy credentails, with appearances by Perrier Award winners Jenny Eclair and Jeremy Hardy, performing at the Tron and the Old Fruitmarket respectively.

Scotland is well represented by Raymond Mearns, Mark Nelson, Bruce Morton, Susan Calman and Bob Doolally, while Controversial Canadian Tom Stade and uncompromising Australian Jim Jeffries add the globe-trotting natuire of the event.

Look out too for a comedy pub crawl, speed-dating, gong show, coach tour and Glasgow vs Edinburgh events.

The BAFTA Scotland film night has proved such a popular draw at previous festivals that it has been upscaled this year to Corinthian. The Winners' Night (Thu Sep 25) features screenings of short films from all over Scotland with the audience nominating who will take home the Merchant City Festival Audience Award.

Glasgow-based dance group Dance House returns with its family-friendly Barefoot Boogie (Sun Sep 28), while it's strictly adults-only at the group's Burlesque Extravaganza cabaret.

Children are catered to with weekend workshops in art, storytelling and a Percussion Picnic gathering hosted by Giant Productions.

Director Neil Butler added: "In creating the Merchant City Festival programme, we are really saying that Scottish arts and culture is so rich and there's such an enormous amount going on, let's create a festival that gives you a taste of all of it.

"You can go in and see opera, then have a great meal and shop for some clothes.

"I think that's a great advert for Scotland, and of course for Glasgow."

• For more information, go to Merchant City Festival, call 0141 552 6027.