A 16th century castle at the foot of the Snežnik forests in the south of the country will provide a backdrop for the annual Floating Castle festival over the next four days, hosting musicians and artists from all over the world.

Set in the natural environment of Snežnik Castle, this site-specific festival has been increasingly popular with visitors and performers. Among more than 400 entries this year, a jury selected about half to perform at the festival.

Folk-fusion, experimental, jazz, electronic, and original music concerts, circus and theatre shows and workshops for adults and children will be popping up from a forest amphitheatre, by a freshwater spring, on top of a fire engine, on a floating stage, in the castle hall, on a garage roof, in a dormouse museum and everywhere in between.

The organisers want the audience to get the impression they have entered an endless stage and become part of the show themselves. Matija Solce, the festival's artistic director, says the idea is to allow the visitors to join the flow and pick a venue that suits their mood.

In all the festival will see about 300 shows on 17 site-specific stages. This year's theme is Polhn Grad, which translates as full castle but also puns on dormouse in a reference to the local custom of dormouse trapping.

Visitors will be invited to enter the dormouseatorium, fall into a time capsule of the dormouseofuture, take a rest in the dormouse nest, listen to the hunting tales in the tavern, enjoy the views from the dormouseattic, climb up from hell and lay down their burden on the Dormouse Path to the Chapel.

In exchange for admission, each visitor will get five coins, which they will hand out to performers they like best. All of the festival's proceeds will then be distributed between the artists, with the amount depending on the number of coins they gather.

One of the highlights will be a multimedia spectacle featuring the Etno Histeria World Orchestra, which brings together 70 musicians from 21 countries. The orchestra will perform at the festival on 28 July, having visited several towns in Slovenia as well as Croatia's Prezid and Italy's Trieste in the run-up.

The festival will open at 5pm on 27 July and will run almost non-stop until 6pm on 30 July. For further details, click here.