The Festival will run from the 21st of June until the 9th September (the end of the Paralympic Games) and people already signed up include Damon Albarn, Alan Ayckbourn, Cate Blanchett, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Jude Law, Mike Leigh and Leona Lewis.
At the Official Launch, journalists got a taster from actor Mark Rylance as he gave a impromptu performance of his "Pop-up Shakespeare show", he spoke about the Festival and said "Some of it might be confrontational and some of it might be intimate, but it will be out in the street and for free which is the wonderful thing about this".
A full list of events is yet to be released, but organisers did promise a "astonishing" outdoor concert at Stirling Castle in Scotland which will feature Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and Simon Bolivar of the Symphony Orchestra.
So far the following Festival events have been announced
- A nationwide bell-ringing event masterminded by artist Martin Creed at 0800 on 27 July - the first day of the Olympics
- The shores of Lake Windermere, Cumbria, will be lit up by fire in an outdoor musical show
- An art installation which will span the 86-mile length of the remains of Hadrian's Wall
- Stonehenge will be turned into "a glowing fairy-tale environment"
- In Northern Ireland, the Giant's Causeway will be transformed with a light installation
- In Edinburgh, runners wearing specially designed light suits will illuminate Arthur's Seat
- An "all-star concert" in Northern Ireland
- Mike Leigh has made short film, A Running Jump, filmed in East London
- Big Dance will encourage 5 million people to take part in all kinds of dance
