More than 25,000 people attended this year's Norfolk and Norwich Festival helping cement the event's place at the city's cultural heart. The 12-day festival, offering everything from jazz to classical music alongside comedy and dance, came to an end yesterday with a family day at St George's Street.

More than 25,000 people attended this year's Norfolk and Norwich Festival helping cement the event's place at the city's cultural heart.

The 12-day festival, offering everything from jazz to classical music alongside comedy and dance, came to an end yesterday with a family day at St George's Street.

This event summed up the diverse nature of the festival offering a four-hour carnival featuring the Norwich Samba Band, a perplexed street clown, a dancer attempting to sit on a bench that would not stay still and free workshops from the Britten Sinfonia.

Boasting two symphony orchestras, six choirs, four world premieres and an opera the arts extravaganza always promised to be a huge success with an international feel.

But festival director Jonathan Holloway said he was delighted after revealing 13,000 people attended ticketed performances with a further 13,000 turning out for free events.

This was an increase on the turnout for the 2005 event - itself a 60pc increase of previous years.

Mr Holloway said: "We had more sell-out performances than ever and all of the artists received a phenomenal reception.

"The Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra were among the highlights along with Andy Shepherd, Joby Talbot and Bigger Sky.

"What is so pleasing about this year is that we had equal turnout for both the paid-for and the free events."

Plans are already afoot for next year and the organisers have some ambitious ideas to improve it further.

"We want to maintain the quality of this year and improve it in as much as possible," said Mr Holloway.

"We also want to open the festival up to as many people as we can. We have a lot of people saying they only became aware of it once it was already running and wanting more information about what was going on."