ORGANISERS want to establish a regular arts festival for the city after their first event was hailed a roaring success.

More than 1,000 art-lovers flocked to the inaugural Hove Park Community Festival at the weekend.

Organisers Alan and Jackie Moon were inspired by a “mesmerising” sculpture trail in Sydney.

Mr Moon, chairman of Friends of Hove Park, said: “I said to my wife, ‘we have all this space, we could do something like this’.”

The event invited more than 20 artists from Brighton and Hove to break the conventions of a traditional art exhibition.

Mr Moon said: “I wanted to present and show art in a festival way, not a gallery in a country manor. We built an eight-foot-tall wooden cube and two street artists taught children how to paint on it. There was also another artist who used boot polish.”

The couple organised the event with the help of Brighton-based community arts charity Same Sky, responsible for the Children’s Parade and Burning the Clocks events.

Now they have big plans for the future of the festival and are already planning for next year.

Mr Moon said: “The most important thing for us is to establish a proper arts festival that people and artists enjoy.”

On Saturday evening, this year’s event also featured a lantern trail.

More than 300 people created and carried lanterns lit up with LEDs creating a “beautiful display” around the edge of the park.

Next year Mr Moon said he would look to grow this further.

He said: “We want to create an art trail going from the Copse in Hove Park all the way to the seafront. We are also looking encourage schools to make sculptures which would then be featured in next year’s festival.

“I think the festival could be something really positive for the city, and for Hove in particular.”

Alan said it was “great to work with Same Sky and added: “It was incredibly hard work.

“But my wife worked as hard as I did and I could not have done it without her.”