Kilkenny Arts Festival is Ireland's premier and oldest multi-disciplinary arts festival offering 10 days of the best of Irish and international theatre, music, film, craft, dance, literature, visual arts, and street and children's events.

2013 saw the 40th edition of the festival, with over 500 artists from 21 countries presenting almost 150 events in 35 distinct locations. Each year, this arts festival welcomes over 28,000 visitors to the city with its mix of poets and performers, sopranos and sculptors, Krautrock and craftwork, workshops and talks. The festival was originally founded by a group of classical music enthusiasts. In recent years the festival has broadened its programming remit and now programmes the following arts forms, theatre and dance, classical music, music, street performance, literature, visual art, opera and craft. Underpinning the presentation of events is the commitment to bring work to Kilkenny that would not be seen outside the festival context and a desire to commission and produce new work from Ireland and abroad. For more details and a programme of events, see the festival website.