HUNDREDS of artists descended on Bradford city centre for the start of a two day conference that will helped show off the creative side of the city.

The Independent Street Arts Network is holding its annual “Ideas Summit” in Bradford, and creative types from as far as Scotland, London and Brighton met in the empty former Marks & Spencer building on Darley Street this afternoon for the start of the event.

The first day will end with a networking event in the New Beehive pub at 8pm, and tomorrow there will be street art events on Darley Street from 2pm.

Arts organisation The Brick Box, which relocated from London this summer invited the network to the city as a way of showing off the potential of Bradford as a public arts space.

Earlier this summer arts group East Street Arts took on the building, and several other city centre units, on a temporary lease, and they have since been turned into artistic venues.

The Brick Box turned the M&S building into The Wild Woods, and has held several public events at the venue in recent weeks that have attracted hundreds of people.

Today’s conference visitors were surrounded by trees and bushes, and flanked by a giant statue of the Bradford Boar.

The group’s directors told the crowd how the Wild Woods had come about. Rosie Freeman, co-director, said: “Darley Street used to be a key shopping street in Bradford, now many of its shops are empty.

“With quite a small budget we have run creative activities in this space. We were hoping to get 200 people at our first Wild Woods event, but we got over 800, and the feedback has been fantastic.”

Through the day representatives from different arts groups pitched ideas for public arts projects to events programmers, producers, festival bookers and other artists.

Street arts are a prominent part of many events through the district, including the annual Bradford Festival and Shipley Street Arts Festival.

Eleanor Barrett, founder and co-director of Brick Box, said: “Lots of the people who have come to this event have never been to Bradford before, and they were really interested in coming here and seeing what it is all about.

“We’ve been talking a lot about re-generation, and people are really excited to be inside a place like this.

“Bradford has a really strong history of street art, dating back to the early days of Bradford Festival and all the arts groups that were about then.

“It is a big part of our heritage, and this event is building on that.

“This event is getting people thinking about Bradford as a place where creative things can happen.

“With Darley Street being pedestrianised it is particularly suited to street arts.”

Jeni Barnard from street art group Acrojou gave a keynote speech about the importance of bringing art and science together, and during the afternoon the different groups displayed photos of their previous performances.

And tonight the potential of Darley Street as an arts venue will be highlighted when Cecil Green Arts group hold a lantern parade through the city centre, starting on the street.