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Years from now, long after Tokyo's Odaiba district has gone, the warm afterglow of Design Festa will linger. Billed as Japan's biggest art event, the bi-annual show in the Tokyo Big Site venue is an artistic free-for-all for thousands of designers, filmmakers, sculptors, poets and painters.
Established in 1994, the premise of Festa is simple: why bother with separate shows for different categories of design; just invite everyone to one exhibition. This year, about 6,000 people took up the offer and turned up with possibly the most eclectic, wacky and bizarre collection of exhibits in Asia.
After 21 shows and growing fame, most first-timers know to expect the unexpected, but nothing quite prepares you for entry into what looks like an aircraft-hanger party organised by art students who have had too much coffee. Half the fun is just soaking up the sheer creative energy on display and feeling it tickling your synapses.
After looking at hundreds of stalls exhibiting everything from hippy kimono bags to S&M costumes, the eyes begin to burn and legs turn to rubber, and that's before you see any of the graphic designers, model makers, street painters, rock bands or theatre performers on offer. Then there are the projection room, the indoor and outdoor stages, and the ethnic restaurants.
Half the fun, though, is mingling with the crowd: a mixture of curious punters, families, and what might loosely be called the Shibuya Set - hip students, punks, high-school girls in loose socks and cross-dressers, along with dazed-looking older folk who seem to have wandered in from the last century.
Many of the exhibits look like the efforts of first-year college design courses and probably are, but some are the work of serious artists and inventors. I quite fancied the ergonomic garbage bins but wondered why anyone would want plastic bags filled with goldfish hung from the ceiling as a home decoration.