More than 100,000 people flooded the streets to be entertained by weird and wonderful performers from all over the world.

The two-day Streets of Brighton extravaganza pulled in thousands of visitors from outside the city as well as many residents keen to take in the colourful sights in the North Laine.

Crowds of people gathered around street performers who were doing everything from acting and joking around to singing and dancing.

Many were dressed up in extravagant and decadent costumes, as were many of the audience, and at times it was hard to tell who was a performer and who was just a member of the crowd.

Not even rain on Saturday afternoon could dispel the feel-good, carnival atmosphere.

Organiser Dave Reeves said: "It's amazing the sheer interest people have in this festival. We had well over 100,000 people over the three nights and two days, which was fantastic."

About 150 different theatre and arts companies took part in the festival, which ran from Thursday night to Saturday night, with more than 500 artists performing.

Mr Reeves, of Zap Art, said it had received requests to perform from three times as many artists as it was able to accommodate because the festival, now in its ninth year, had become so popular.

Many of the street performers came from Spain, France, Holland and Japan.

Mr Reeves said: "I am not a great one for sitting in rows in a theatre and I started going to street festivals in France. My whole family enjoyed it and we started it here. You can do so many more things outside than inside and the most important thing is it's free.

"Wherever you are you can be accosted by a kissing box or a 30ft spider. It can be quite fun and also quite serious. It's about using the public space and engaging with the public in a completely different way."

On Saturday, dozens of artists performed their shows and there was everything from ballroom dancers, stilt-walking insects, old-fashioned furniture removal men and a two-headed white camel named Humphrey to men dressed in pink as air hostesses, manic waiters and acrobats.

Barry and Yvonne, the ballroom dancers, had the audience in stitches with their antics, especially when they hauled up an unsuspecting member of the public and told him to clench his buttocks.

Afterwards Barry, real name Peter Murray, said: "We described ourselves as garish, ballroom, neurotic suburban glitter queens.

"The Brighton festival is always really good, especially now it is well established. So many people come to it and the main thing for us is a happy audience."

Yvonne, real name Emma Lloyd, has worked with Peter for ten years. Both are from Bristol but they perform all over the country and abroad.

She said: "There is a festival atmosphere in the streets. There is a cosmopolitan, European feel here which is quite hard to get in a lot of other cities in Britain."

Sue Williams was one of many parents who enjoyed the ballroom dancing show with her four-year-old daughter Claudia.

She said: "I think it's great free entertainment, great fun and highly imaginative. I come to it most years."

Louise Bowles, from Preston Park, Brighton, was enjoying the festival for the first time with her children, Stanley, seven, and Kitty, five.

She said: "I didn't know what it was all about before but it's great. It's what Brighton is about. My children love it, it really is very good."

Other attractions included three shows by Brighton's Voodoo Vaudeville.

In the first, Formula F-un, the pit-stop team waved passers-by off the North Laine and polished, pampered and refreshed them before sending them back out.

The second one, called Clatteratti, was an explosion of drumming and rhythms while in the third, hellish students were allowed to run riot under the dubious supervision of an inept, sherry-swilling headmistress in St Trinian's Day Out.

Two stilt-walkers clad from head to toe in silver performed outrageous antics for the crowds and held up a copy of The Argus with a picture of themselves on the front page.

Another stilt-walker dressed as a footballer in a black and white strip strolled around kicking a football and a small bean bag.

The grand finale was a night-time Bollywood parade through the streets described as a dynamic fusion of contemporary British Asian culture, Indian traditions, carnival and fiesta.

Thousands of revellers lined the pavements as dozens of performers created a carnival atmosphere dressed in brightly coloured Indian clothes as they danced.

A human catherine wheel provided a spectacular talking point and a blaze of fireworks lit up the night sky to make sure the final night went with a real bang.

Manic waiters had al fresco diners in fits of laughter as they toured the North Laine and can-can dancers wowed audiences with their frilly outfits and high leg-kicking antics outside the Theatre Royal.

Members of the Mimbre Acrobat Company performed feats of incredible flexibility to people on the Pavilion lawns while fearsome-looking Hells Angels rode around on the tiniest little push bike.

There was also entertainment from a Geisha girl, a 3ft troll, jugglers and mermaids blowing bubbles.