A carnival of stilt walkers, unicyclists, dancers and drummers led by giant sculptures will kick off the countdown to CultureShock, North Yorkshire's unique youth arts festival. Over 60 young people from all over North Yorkshire will parade along Northallerton high street on Saturday treating onlookers to a spirited performance of circus skills behind their 15 feet high sculptures of radio towers, created to fit in with this year's CultureShock theme of communication.

Many of the young people, drawn from youth groups across the county, have honed their performance at a recent "Let's Circus" skills residential run by North Yorkshire County Council's Connecting Youth Culture held at Carlton Lodge, Carlton Miniott.

And many of those taking part in Saturday's parade will also perform alongside professional circus acts at the CultureShock festival itself where Big Top acts include Japanese unicycling acrobats Witty Look, Australian pyrotechnic performers Flame Oz and fire hula hoop duo the Cowgirls from Downunder.

CultureShock, which takes place between 1st and 3rd July, and which is now in its ninth year, is the only youth festival in the country to offer a three-day green-site event. It offers school days and a Proms evening and Big Show Evening in addition to the main youth arts day on Saturday. It is produced by Connecting Youth Culture, part of North Yorkshire County Council's 4Youth service and is intended to allow young people to attend a festival in a safe drug and alcohol free environment before they venture on to other bigger festivals elsewhere.

A huge range of music tastes will be catered for on Saturday July 3rd with dozens of bands offering rap in the hip-hop tent to new bands in the 6k Vision tent and acoustic performers in the Acoustic Chillout Café.

The line-up on the main stage includes White Light Parade, a short, sharp punk outfit along with Utah Saints making a comeback with their trail-blazing electronic music. North Yorkshire's The Squatters will headline the Urban Village Tent.

As well as performance, CultureShock offers a huge variety of workshops for people to take part in from digital animation to didgeridoo.

County Councillor Heather Garnett, North Yorkshire's executive member for youth services said: "The Carnival will give people a wonderful preview of exciting performances and skills from the county's young people which will be in abundance at the CultureShock festival itself. CultureShock is a great event, which draws thousands of people together for a weekend of brilliant music, art, drama and dance, a real opportunity for them to celebrate the huge amount of creativity that is out there among our young people."