The 23rd China Shanghai International Arts Festival will take place from Oct 18 to Nov 17 with more than 5,000 artists from 80 countries and regions participating in over 300 performance and exhibition events, the municipality announced at a press conference held on Sunday.

The main section will consist of 163 shows for 57 performing art productions. About 60 percent of them will be from overseas, and more than 90 of the shows will be making their debut in Shanghai.

Shanghai Dance Theatre's new creation, Azure After the Rain, will open the festival at Shanghai Culture Square from Oct 18 to 20. The show tells the life and creations of Li Qingzhao (1084-1155), widely recognized as the greatest woman poet of China.

A concert by the Munchner Philharmoniker from Germany, featuring Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev and Chinese pianist Zhang Haochen, scheduled to take place at the Jaguar Shanghai Symphony Hall on Nov 16 and 17, will be the closing production for the festival.

An integral part of the festival, the China Shanghai Performing Arts Fair (ChinaSPAF) will be attended by more than 2,000, representing about 500 performing arts institutions and art festivals. The festival will sign a five-year strategic partnership with the International Society for the Performing Arts, holding the annual conference for the Silk Road International Arts Festival Alliance.

Aside from the on-stage shows, open performances will be held in the parks, river-side areas and urban community centers all over the city, and more than 90 art educational activities will be held during the festival.

At 1:30 pm on Sunday, the festival kicked off the first round sales of discount tickets for the theater productions. The festival will give out altogether 8,000 discount tickets to the 57 theater productions, with the lowest priced at no more than 30 yuan ($4.3).