The inaugural City of Colours street art festival in Birmingham has proved such a success that next year's event will be doubled.

Organiser Becci Wright has told the Post the major theme from all the feedback she has so far received was that one day was not enough - so the 2015 festival will take place over a whole weekend.

Ms Wright and her partner Karl Paragreen decided to organise the first ever City of Colours festival, which took place earlier this month, after seeing other cities such as London and Bristol host their own successful events and feeling that Birmingham could offer something to match them.

Thousands of people, including more than 140 artists, descended on Digbeth to admire various pieces of street art and take part in workshops and seminars such as breakdancing, photography and DJ-ing.

Ms Wright said: "I think we can safely say it was a huge success and definitely exceeded my expectations while businesses in the area enjoyed bumper sales on the day.

"The footfall was much higher than we were anticipating and our crowd control staff estimated that up to 9,000 people attended - far higher than the 5,000 I had predicted.

"The feedback has been very positive, from the artists and particularly in terms of bringing so many people together, from lots of different ages including families and the elderly, and we even had visitors from Europe including Lithuania and Poland.

"But many people said they wished it had run over two days so that's what we're doing next year.

"We originally wanted to have a two-day festival this year but, because it was the first one and we were dipping our toes in the water, we felt it better to hold it over just one day.

"Many of the artists actually came back on the Sunday to carry on working and finish their pieces and there were dozens of people milling about anyway."

The festival was free to enter and took place across ten venues in the Digbeth area, including the Old Crown and Rainbow Arena, with the Custard Factory acting as the epicentre.

Among the street artists taking part were G-Anders, N4T4 and Dan Kitchener, whose work can be seen in the gallery above, and renowned artist Inkie who finished second in the 1989 World Street Art Championship.

It was staffed entirely by volunteers and Ms Wright put some of her own money into getting the event up and running.

She said she would now be targeting bodies such as the Arts Council for further funding after its support for this year's event and also local businesses in a bid to increase the level of sponsorship for the 2015 festival.

"The dream would be for me to turn this into a full-time job but we want to keep the festival completely free," she added.

"Everyone working on it was a volunteer, which was brilliant, but to ask them to do it again for a second time might be a bit much.

"Digbeth lends itself to this kind of event because it's the creative quarter but the festival was centred on the Custard Factory side of the road.

"We will be looking to bring in the other side of the High Street next year as there are a lot of industrial buildings, many of them vacant and unused, which could get involved and would benefit from some form of regeneration."

The 2015 City of Colours festival will take place on September 5 and 6.