There was a lot to be concerned about in the lead up to this year’s WOMADelaide festival. There was the looming prospect of a heatwave, memories of last year’s overcrowding issues, and, in the days before the gates opened, the controversy surrounding Palestinian band 47SOUL being uninvited from the festival.

Once through the gates, however, those concerns began fading into the background as four days of music and arts unfolded.

The festival’s program had some last-minute shifts and changes due to extreme heat. With temperatures close to 40 degrees each day, one stage remained closed during daylight hours and several performances were relocated, postponed or cancelled.

Fortunately, after record attendances in 2023 stretched facilities (and audience comfort) to their limits, the festival layout was redesigned this year to open up more space and shade. Suspended hoses sprayed cool mists at various locations, for the benefit not only of human visitors, but the thousands of fruit bats that reside in Adelaide’s Botanic Park.

Like the heat-stressed bats, most festival patrons chose to avoid too much activity during the day. It didn’t matter how strong the talent on the stage, most of us tapped our toes madly from shady spots under distant trees, though Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon managed to coax a handful of dancers into the stinging afternoon sun.

The heat, music and art swirled together across the weekend to create a surreal atmosphere. Dancers undulated atop 10-metre poles (Gratte Ciel’s RoZéO). We reclined in deck chairs while a philosophical scientist and her three ‘clones’ – all dressed like 1960s flight attendants – sang above and around us (Compagnie On Off’s Le Chant de L’eau). Feeling sweaty and soporific on Sunday, I suddenly noticed a family of elephants lumbering (from Handspring Puppet Company) slowly through the park and I immediately forgot my fatigue.

Cutting through the heat and the atmosphere, the madcap Dubioza Kolektiv (from Bosnia and Herzegovina) threw themselves into their performance with such vigour that the audience had no choice but to respond, leaping in time with the raucous, punk-infused Balkan rhythms and indulging in a singalong.

Seun Kuti, Baaba Maal and Angelique Kidjo all fronted dazzling bands, and radiated vitality along with a fierce commitment to the search for peace, tolerance and respect for all. Their music may have been irresistibly upbeat and optimistic, but their lyrics and between-song exhortations urged us to look after our planet and one another, and reminded us that (in Kidjo’s words) “we still have a lot of work to do”.