About three-thousand delegates from more than 20 Pacific Island countries and territories are taking part in the event, which was officially opened yesterday and is expected to swell Honiara's population by up to 100,000.

Doreen Kuper, the head of the national organising committee, says she hopes the government will see the economic potential of Solomon Islands' artists.

She says people's natural abilities and talents that exist and creativity and so on because that hasn't been tapped into at all.

Mrs Kuper says she is hoping that it'll give people some form of future and a life really.

She says there's a lot of excitement about the festival in Honiara and people are looking forward to the exchange of cultures over the next fortnight.