Loop, St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton, Saturday December 3

The official reason was not given at the time of going to press, but the word on the street is that it is due to his wife being sick. This was far from the first hurdle involved with this unique, conceptually brilliant and promising event whose road to realisation has been far from smooth.

A replacement 'of a similar calibre' is apparently being sought, although with just a day to go, even the help of the word charity will make this no mean feat.

All the press for Loop - an innovative, frankly quite bonkers Brighton charity event with a great line-up - has had the words 'Damon Albarn' displayed prominently.

The promise of a live appearance by the Blur frontman would have been enough to justify the £23 ticket price and get fans trampling down the doors of St Bartholomew's church in their excitement.

However, Damon's management company CMO were always reluctant to promote his appearance at the gig in any way - to the extent of refusing to give out pictures of him. They have insisted that while he might attend the event, a live set could not be confirmed.

Steve Lovell, one of the organisers of Loop, co-produced Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish album and is a personal friend of Damon's.

He says he first spoke to Damon more than a year ago about appearing at the event.

"The ball started rolling when I had the idea for Loop and asked Damon to do something, and he said he would," says Steve.

"I was trying to set up him doing a duet with Norman Cook."

These conflicting accounts made it very difficult to decide whether Steve was hyping up Damon's appearance to sell tickets, or CMO were playing it down to cover their backs in case he didn't show.

Thankfully, after much to-ing, fro-ing, spinning and procrastinating, the man himself popped out of the studio last Friday, where he's been holed up recording the latest Gorillaz album, to confirm with Steve that yes, he was intending to perform.

Damon was due to be playing an acoustic set, with some old material and some new stuff as well. Steve said: "He was really fired up and looking forward to it."

A rare solo acoustic set from Damon Albarn, performed in the fantastic venue that is St Bartholomew's, would have been quite a coup for a charity gig. However, as Steve has been playing guitar and producing music for the likes of Julian Cope and James for the past 20 years, he probably has quite a few favours to call in and will hopefully find a good replacement.

But the tale of all this jiggery-pokery is obscuring the fact that with or without Damon, Loop is a highly original audiovisual spectacular being put on for a very good cause.

Nothing quite like this has ever happened in St Bartholomews' church before, although the dark 19th Century brick edifice with its soaring roof and gold altar mosaic is regularly filled with music from services or classical concerts.

A giant helium balloon sailing down the nave and unleashing a bagful of confessions over the people below is probably a less familiar event. If there's anything roosting up the roof-tree of St Bart's, it's going to get a big shock tomorrow night.

The heliosphere is only one component of the event, which pretty much defies coherent description. Like a mini arts carnival, Loop will feature music and art that play off one another.

The audience will stand in the centre of a church, as if for a gig, while performances take place around and above them. As no smoking or drinking is allowed in the church, a bar will be provided next door in St Bartholomew's school.

All the money raised from the tickets will go the Rockinghorse Appeal, which raises funds for specialist medical equipment at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children.

The words 'mind-bogglingly eclectic' could be applied to the line-up. Damon will be appearing alongside classical tenor Edward Breen, Jem Finer from The Pogues (who also happens to be artist in residence at the Astrophysics department of Oxford University), post-rock band Hood and Sophie Barker from Zero 7.

The whole thing will be compered by Brighton actor Mark Williams, famous for his appearances as a Fast Show regular and fresh from performing as Mr Weasley in the Harry Potter films.

"The name Loop gives an idea of the theme - we wanted to do something that was like a cycle, that flowed from one thing to another," says Steve.

"It's not like a gig with a support and then a main band.

"The way I saw it was that people tend to stick to the kind of entertainment they like and not to watch other stuff.

"I wanted to bring music and art together."

The art installations are performances in their own right. The heliosphere act was developed from an idea by artist Nick Hopkins. He asked people to write down lies they've told in the past onto strips of paper and then to contribute them, anonymously, to him like a modern-day confessional.

Jem Finer has also contributed a video installation in his capacity as astrophysicsartist.

"The video we're showing is of him doing this zero-gravity thing in a plane," says Steve.

"It's him and a friend of his wearing turbans and learning how to fly a carpet. It's the most off your head thing you've ever seen.

"He also says he wants to start his performance in complete darkness and he's bringing his own light show, so God knows what its going to be like - it's real seat of your pants stuff."

Combining art with alcohol, there will be a large interactive floor grid -Gridio - placed in the bar. The pressure-sensitive grid sets off audio-visual clips on surrounding video screens as people move across it. Queuing for a pint may never be so interesting.

It's not all going to be art-rock lunacy and helium balloons, though.

"It's going to be quite festive," says Steve.

"There'll be an area outside with charcoal fires, and we're having punch and mince pies."

Highlighting the charity aspect of the event is a piece written specially for the occasion by Nick Hornby, which will be read by the award-winning actor Ian Hart.

"Nick's writing is quite intense," says Steve.

"It's about his autistic son so obviously it's related to children and therefore the Rockinghorse Appeal.

"I wanted to do an event like this anyway, but I have a three and a half year-old daughter and I started thinking how terrible it would be if she ever needed hospital treatment - so the charity idea came from there.

"The main thing is just bringing it all together, because people have very different understandings of what an event like this is going to be.

"It's been really interesting working with the people from the church. Obviously they do put on events but they're usually classical concerts, so we've all had to work to understand each other.

"When we first told them what we wanted they were really nervous because they thought we had a rave organised.

"I was waiting for ages to tell them about the heliosphere because I was so worried about what they'd make of it, but in the end they said 'Oh, that's wonderful, maybe they can inspect the rafters while they're up there!'."

It's obviously been a complicated and crazy ride putting the event together, and there should be a fair amount of craziness on the night.

"In the Sixties they used to have these 'happenings' at The Roundhouse in London," says Steve.

"You'd have someone frying an egg miked up to the PA system. And then Pink Floyd would come on - it would all be very psychedelic.

"I really want to recreate that feeling of spontaneity."

Starts 6pm, tickets cost £23 / £15 and will be available on the day. Seats can be provided for those that need them. Call 01273 709709 or go to
www.bubblesoundart.com