An arts festival is a festival that focuses on the visual arts in all its forms, but which may also focus on or include other arts.

Arts festivals in the visual arts are exhibitions and are not to be confused with the commercial art fair. Artists participate in the most important of such festival exhibitions by invitation, and these exhibitions (e.g. the Venice Biennale) are organised by internationally recognized curators chosen by a committee of peers. These international exhibitions must be distinguished from art fairs, market-oriented gatherings of art dealers and their wares, which have recently emerged as among the most important art-world venues for promoting artists and sales of contemporary art in the present-day super-heated art market.

Probably the two oldest festivals are in England. The Three Choirs Festival in the West of England was established as a "yearly musical assembly" by 1719. The other is the Norfolk and Norwich Festival which first took place in 1772. The largest arts festival in England today is the Brighton Festival Fringe.

Performing arts are art forms in which artists use their body or voice to convey artistic expression—as opposed to plastic arts, in which artists use clay, metal, paint, and other materials to create physical art objects. The first recorded use of the term performing arts was in 1711.

Performing arts include dance, music, opera, theatre, magic, Spoken word, circus arts and musical theatre.

Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft.

Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc.

There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called performance art. Most performance art also involves some form of plastic art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the Modern dance era.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.

Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.