GEORGE TOWN, July 3 ― Pop-up stores and exhibitions on ferries, a BookXcess sale of all books on art, culture and creativity, vintage Vespas and Volkswagen, talks and showcases.

These and many more exciting events are set to liven up the oft-unseen Seberang Perai during George Town Festival (GTF) next month.

For the first time ever, the GTF will include Butterworth in its month-long celebration of culture and arts with the Butterworth Fringe Festival (BFF) that will fall on August 15 and 16.

Festival director Joe Sidek admitted that he has overlooked Butterworth in the years GTF has been held, but he is glad that they are now including mainland this year.

“We hope it works and we hope to turn it into a yearly thing,” he said in an interview with the Malay Mail Online.

To make the two-day festival a success, a pre-festival will be held two days ahead with showcases, exhibitions, workshops, talks and the BookXcess art and cultural book sale to drum up interest in the BFF.

Joe said they are also working with transport providers Uber, with the vintage Vespas and Volkswagen, with Catch-a-bus, to move people from the ferry terminal to the festival site located at Jalan Jeti Lama.

“Everyone who comes on the ferry will get a free ride to the festival site,” he said, adding that this is one way to get more people to go for BFF.

Joe said the previous years' GTF has been very much Penang island-centric and that it is time to put some focus on the mainland through BFF.

“My duty is to start it and hope it will continue because the promotion of arts and culture should continue in Butterworth because we don't have museums or art galleries there,” he said.

Other than the BFF, this year's GTF also promises to be more “Malaysianised” with more local content and a focus on the local community.

Joe said that as the festival evolves since its inception in 2010, the direction of the festival should be on the community and the people now.

“The festival is becoming more public, my way of sharing with the people, it is about arts, culture, lessons, food and traditions and this is why the programmes for the festival is 80 per cent free,” he said.

Citing complaints that he was neglecting local talent, Joe said this was why this year's programmes were giving Malaysian acts the centre stage.

One of the highlights of the GTF programmes is “P.Ramlee The Musical”, which was usually performed at the Istana Budaya in Kuala Lumpur.

“The real interesting things about the programmes this year are not the international highlights but the curated shows about the ancient trees or the talk by John Lim about the architecture of five houses, or the food masterclass, the talk about traditional food and the exhibitions,” he said.

This year, there will also be a showcase of All Things Malaysian (ATM), which is a platform for local designers and those in the creative line to show their work.

As with every year, Joe laments the lack of funding from large corporations for the festival despite the festival receiving international acclaim and recognition for so many years.

He called on more corporations to come forward to support the festival as it is an annual challenge for them to raise the funds to be able to organise the month-long events and exhibitions.

“The state came up with RM3.5 million and we need to match that so we really hope corporations would come in too and make this festival a success,” he said.

GTF opens on August 1 with the inaugural “100% Penang” performance ― a unique show consisting 100 ordinary people, who are not actors or performers, to represent Penang's demographics.

Find out more about the list of events and to purchase tickets, go to www.georgetownfestival.com.