Festival of world music scrambles due to world conflict

For the past five days, organisers have scrambled to find last-minute alternative flights from cities all over the world, at a cost of about $160,000 so far.

"Hopefully we'll pick it up at the box office, but one way or the other being able to deliver the program is really a huge relief for everybody involved," director Ian Scobie said.

Only three acts have been unable to make it to Adelaide in time for their scheduled performances, Italy's Alfio Antico & Go Dugong, the Bhutan Balladeers, and Asmâa Hamzaoui and Bnat Timbouktou from Morocco.

The program features more than 600 artists, with 19 out of 47 international performance teams affected by the travel chaos, creating massive logistical challenges, Scobie said.

"It's extraordinary times and WOMAD is about the world as we would want it to be ... festivals like WOMAD demonstrate the things that unite us as human beings are far more important than the voices of division," he said.

One of the acts affected was headliner Roberto Fonseca, whose team has journeyed four continents to make it to Adelaide.

Unable to transit through the United States due to travel restrictions, the Cuban jazz pianist and his crew had been scheduled to fly from Havana to Madrid before heading through Doha and Brisbane.

But halfway to Doha their flight was turned back due to the outbreak of war, according to Scobie, with organisers working out an alternative route from Madrid to Paris and then to Perth and Melbourne.

Another headline act, Jamaica's Grace Jones, is thankfully already midway through her Australian tour, while singer-songwriter and rapper Jovanotti arrived in February.

The lineup also features US hip-hop pioneers Arrested Development and Australia's Yothu Yindi, playing the festival for the first time since 1993 to celebrate 35 years since their influential hit single Treaty.

WOMADelaide returns to Adelaide's Botanic Park from Friday until Monday.