Various venues, Belfast

Until Jan 29 cqaf.com/ outtolunch

Another year, another boutique arts festival, and so 2012 kicks off with Out to Lunch, which is (kind of) an adjunct to Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in May.

As kick-starts to 2012 arts festivals go, this is a goodie. You have comedians Kevin McAleer, Josie Long, Richard Herring, Colin Murphy and Maeve Higgins; you have writers Lionel Shriver and Jon Ronson; and you have some very fine music acts, including Mercury Prize-nominated Ghostpoet (pictured), excellent UK maverick Luke Haines (who will perform old and new material, as well as read from his best-selling memoirs, Bad Vibes and Post Everything), Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom, UK singer/performer Beth Jeans Houghton, and superb post-rockers Lanterns on the Lake.

Can’t See That? Catch This

Declan O’Rourke Sat, Wicklow