According to the announcement published on 3 April 2009, successful basic programme recipe has been maintained with a few extra innovations. The Winter School lecture series has been re-branded as Think!Fest and the format changed to include far more audience participation in the series of open conversations. The popular Transnet Village Green Market has been relocated to a spacious site on the Rhodes University Campus.

Festival favourites like dancer/choreographer Dada Masilo, unplugged opera diva Zanne Stapelberg, theatre man with a rapier-sharp pen Mike van Graan are back, all loaded with surprises. The new crop of Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners and the even newer crop of community and student performers will do their best to impress.

For many, the biggest show of all will amaze and roll non-stop for ten days in the streets, foyers and eateries.

As a prelude to the 2010 influx of visitors to South Africa, the governments of France, India, Ireland, Philippines, Spain, Belgium and USA have made it possible for their artists to join the party. The international flavour is enhanced by a number of visitors on the Fringe Festival.