It's out with the very old and in with the very new in 2015 as the Sydney Festival erects a modern street-art labyrinth in the Hyde Park space where an inflatable Stonehenge stood earlier this year.

Dublin street artist Maser's Higher Ground, a two-storey M.C. Escher-inspired maze constructed from a skeleton of freight containers and covered in graphic stripes and bold colours, will tower over the Festival Village next January.

Visitors will be able to walk in, climb up or just sit down and relax within the piece. "It's about being immersed in the art as much as possible," says Maser.

The artist, who began his career tagging walls in the Dublin docklands not far from the Windmill Lane Studios made famous by U2, has constructed labyrinths before, most recently at the Olympus Photography Playground in Berlin.

Last week he converted an abandoned Las Vegas motel into an interactive artwork; last year he painted over a derelict petrol station in Limerick.

Maser promises Sydney Higher Ground is his biggest project yet. "It will be like being in Disneyland, stepping out of reality and into hyper-reality for a few minutes."

"Big" feels like an appropriate word for the Sydney Festival in 2015, which will feature 974 artists in 495 performances across 25 venues stretching from Bennelong to Parramatta.

Among them will be Chinese artist Zhang Huan, who will install a five-metre Buddha made of ash in Carriageworks, and Belgium-based Charleroi Danses, which will bring things down to a more intimate scale with Kiss and Cry, starring two hands whose tiny performances are projected onto a screen.

The centre of the action, the Festival Village, will be bigger than ever, promises festival director Lieven Bertels in his third year in the job. He's also hoping it will be less chaotic than last year, when people lined for long periods to get in.

"We've reshuffled the layout and we now have two Spiegeltents in the village," he says. "We've really ramped up capacity." In the evening, when the village functions as a licensed venue, it will accommodate more than 3000 people.

There is still no sight of a return for the Festival First Night in the program announced on Thursday, but there will be four separate concerts in the Domain, including one free night headlined by Seu Jorge, the Brazilian artist known to many for his soundtrack album of David Bowie covers for Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisou.

The famous Rubber Duck has apparently been deflated after two years of appearances on Sydney waters, but fans of large-scale "fun" art will enjoy Waterfall Swing at Darling Harbour, on which they can swing towards a curtain of water that separates as they pass through.

There are big names to match the big installations. Acclaimed Indian theatremaker Roysten Abel returns after four years with The Kitchen, which features 12 drummers on stage and culminates in a sweet treat for the audience.

English actor Charlotte Rampling will perform the words of poet Sylvia Plath as cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton plays Benjamin Britten in The Night Dances at City Recital Hall.

The work took two years to get here, with Rampling declining to bring the show to Sydney when first asked.

"She said she wanted to test it in Paris and London before bringing it here," says Bertels. "If she came all this way she wanted it to be perfect."

While Bertels doesn't believe in quotas when it comes to Australian work, there is a solid block of local pieces to see, particularly in the Parramatta program.

Tex Perkins performs Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison album in full at Parramatta Gaol, Paul Kelly and Dan Sultan play the Parramatta opening party, and Sydney-based physical theatre artists Legs On The Wall present new work Puncture at Riverside Theatre.

Another big Australian moment will be Beat the Drum, a ticketed concert in The Domain co-presented by the festival that celebrates 40 years of Triple J. The Presets, The Preatures, You Am I and Hilltop Hoods will perform.

Bertels, who notes that Sydney Festival celebrates its own 40^th anniversary next year, says the concert demonstrates the festival's reach across generations.

Those looking for works that will tackle issues might mark Nothing To Lose in their calendars now. The final work from Force Majeure's artistic director Kate Champion before she leaves the company features dancers with large bodies who share their stories of being "fat" people in today's world.

Another water-cooler work will surely be Asking For It, with Adrienne Truscott of New York burlesque duo The Wau Wau Sisters performing naked from the waist down in a show that takes on "rape culture".

The Sydney Festival receives less money from state and local governments as a proportion of its revenue than some other state arts festivals - about 34 per cent compared with 53 per cent for the Melbourne Festival, as reported in The Monthly.

"The Sydney Festival has a long tradition of holding up its own pants," says Bertels. "It makes us more robust and more resilient because it means we need to work harder on the other two-thirds - box office income and fundraising and philanthropy."

About half of the festival's programming budget goes to free events, of which there will be 85 in 2015. Maser's Higher Ground is set to be the most popular among them if the queues for this year's inflatable Stonehenge, artist Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege, are anything to go by.

Maser will arrive in Sydney in mid-December for the build, working off-site for two-and-a-half weeks before a five-day install at Hyde Park. He has been working with the Sydney Festival team via weekly Skype calls. When Fairfax Media spoke with Bertels, he had just finished a conversation about railing for the work and health and safety considerations.

Maser - who, like UK street artist Banksy, chooses to keep his identity a secret - says he is "blown away" by the change in attitudes towards street art over the past decade.

"Today there is me and this group of guys that get to travel the world to different events and festivals and paint them - that wasn't the case 10 years ago. I think people understand that the majority of us are good people and that we want to do good work."

He says he is looking for other off-site projects to work on while in Sydney. Is there an abandoned petrol station or motel he has in his sights? "Not yet," he says. "But I am sure there will be."

The Sydney Festival runs January 8-26.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD CRITICS' PICKS

Movement and dance
Tabac Rouge promises to be a thrilling adventure in movement-based theatre by James Thierrée, who has entranced Sydney Festival audiences with his imaginative, whimsical stage magic since The Junebug Symphony in 2003. Sydney Theatre, January 8-23. - Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald dance critic

Visual arts
This year's visual arts component is as slender as ever, but Zhang Huan's Sydney Buddha is irresistible. A reflection on mortality consisting of an aluminium cast and a sculpture made from 20 tonnes of incense ash, you'll need several visits if you want to watch how the Buddha crumbles. Carriageworks, January 8-March 15. - John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald art critic

Classical
In the absence of operatic or musical blockbusters, I am drawn to The Night Dances with Charlotte Rampling reading Sylvia Plath and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton playing Benjamin Britten's three solo cello suites. Mixing Plath and Britten has the attraction of opposites - the tragic poet of personal confession, and the shy stylistic genius. Each found a new tone of expressive authenticity amid the clamour of the 20th century that readers and listeners recognise instantly, yet each arrived at it from a totally different direction. It will be intriguing to hear them pass in the night. City Recital Hall, January 16-17. - Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald classical critic

Theatre
Perth-based theatre artists Tim Watts, Arielle Gray, Adriane Daff and Chris Isaacs make work that appeals to the heart and the mind and based on previous shows Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer and It's Dark Outside, their new project, Falling Through Clouds, floats right to the top of my must-see list. York Theatre, January 16-18. - Jason Blake, Sydney Morning Herald theatre critic

Family
It's great to see a family-friendly show like Masquerade up there as one of the Festival's main events. I can't think of a better team of people than Kate Mulvany, Sam Strong and Lee Lewis to bring a beloved storybook to life on the stage and Nathan O'Keefe is one of the most irresistibly energetic actors around. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, January 7-17. - Elissa Blake, Sydney Morning Herald theatre critic

Contemporary music 
Kirin J Callinan is as likely to disturb as amuse with a mix of dirty art and sexy rock. People will talk. The Aurora Spiegeltent, Festival Village, January 15. - Bernard Zuel, Sydney Morning Herald music critic