I've never been to the festival but have been there pre season. It is a beautiful place to visit any time of year, but I imagine with the iris in full bloom it must be incredible. They have all the different types of swans as well as many other types of unusal (to me) birds that live there or just stop for a while. They have a lot that just winter there too. When we went the iris were just peaking up along all the banks, there must have been thousands upon thousands of them!! Do a search for 'Swan Lake' and I think I posted some pics on here before.