Belfast Children's Festival (9-14 March): delighting young audiences for 20 years!

Belfast Children's Festival is back for its 20th year with a celebration of unique and unforgettable events for young audiences and their families between 9 and 14 March. The programme includes lullabies suitable for newborn babies, as well as industry workshops for producers.

Horses is a dance performance from Belgium-based kabinet k & hetpaleis about "wanting to be a grown-up and wanting to remain a child, about power and vulnerability, about carrying and being carried, and how we learn to trust and count on each other". The MAC, Friday 9-Sunday 11, 8+

Oh Yeah Music Centre are hosting a Volume Control gig by the most recent cohort of 14-19 year olds from the music and events industry mentoring project. Showcasing upcoming musicians in a gig organised by young people for young people. Oh Yeah, Friday 9 at 7.30pm, 13+

The festival's birthday party is free and open to all in Botanic Gardens and the Ulster Museum on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 with art workshops, theatre, dance music. In particular, check out the readings from Patrick Sanders' posthumously published book Your Little Tiny Welcome to the Great Big Whole Wide World on Sunday at 1.30pm, 2.30pm and 3.30pm.

Produced by Cahoots NI with Birmingham Rep and Prime Theatre, Penguins tells the story of two male Chinstrap penguins who walk, play, swim and dance together, and decide to try to hatch a rock in place of an egg. Friendship, fun, identity, what it means to be family and the magic of local director Paul Bosco Mc Eneaney and international choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra. The MAC, Saturday 10, Sunday 11, Wednesday 14, 3+



The Assistant's Revenge is another Cahoots show, this time the brand new murder mystery with a magical twist. It all begins when a small-time private eye gets a phone call, and it plunges him into a world of danger and deceit in a case with more twists and turns than a ten-inch corkscrew. With beautiful music by Ursula Burns, the last few seats are available for performances at The MAC on Friday 9, Saturday 10 and Sunday 11, 8+



Getting Dressed tackles what can be a stressful activity for children starting school. Climb a mountain of clothes, plunge into piles of pants or swing in swathes of skirts. Whether they're big or small, scratchy or soft, ordinary or extraordinary, the festival organisers promise that clothes and getting dressed will never be the same again. The MAC, Saturday 10 and Sunday 11, 4-7

Amadan Ensemble ask whether girls and boys are so different in Pink & Blue. Join the two clowns in The MAC on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11, 4+

Greg Caffrey is back with a one act work-in-progress children's opera The Man With The Chocolate Beard after last year's The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse. Belfast City Hall, Sunday 11, ages 8+. SOLD OUT