But, despite grim weather and the odd production hiccup that left some of the crowd disappointed on Friday night and Saturday morning, by the afternoon La Princesse had so successfully disrupted the everyday spectacle of life that those who had come to Liverpool to shop found themselves pursuing a spider instead.
On the streets themselves: in the flashmobs and demos that disrupt the spectacle of everyday life; and in community-inspired events that transform familiar landscapes.
This is a show that disrupts the spectacle of everyday life and transforms the city from an impersonal place of work and business into a place of play and community.
The magazine claims to be "an instrument for dismantling the everyday propaganda of the spectacle" and "the treatment of oneself as the enemy that needs to be provoked, subverted, and eventually overcome".
In addition to decorative borders and panels with geometric or vegetative motifs, wall painting depicts scenes from mythology and the theatre, landscapes and gardens, recreation and spectacles, work and everyday life, and frank pornography.
Mr. Grooms began his career in the 1950s, mixing media and an interest in pop culture and everyday life into theatrical sets, installations and experimental spectacles (one provocative performance simulated a building fire, with performers jumping out of flaming windows).
Okereke read Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle and Henri Lefebvre's Critique of Everyday Life, works which analyse how people experience leisure in modern societies, and was inspired to pen several songs which detail the drug and drink culture present in a metropolis.
However, ELS is often performed in everyday practice with a consequently higher incidence of freedom from spectacles and greater savings.
The more everyday parts of the building are left looking eclipsed by the spectacles, and exhausted by the effort of achieving it.
But now, sports and the environment are indelibly linked from the glitziest athletic spectacles, played out on the world stage, to the everyday games played by billions of ordinary people and from this current generation of sports enthusiasts, a new generation of environmentalists may be emerging.
