As Brighton Festival and Brighton Fringe end for another year, Andrew Comben, chief executive of Brighton Dome and Festival, looks at his highlights of the year's event and thanks those who have made the May Effect possible.

The May Effect: Brighton and Hove has revelled in another three weeks of art, entertainment, fun and reflection.

But what’s it all for? Of course I believe the arts have an intrinsic value – offering a way of understanding ourselves, each other and the world in a deeper and richer way – and this year’s Festival, with guest director Vanessa Redgrave, has certainly offered thousands of keen attenders that opportunity.

But as the new mayor of Brighton and Hove reminded us all at the Artists Open Houses awards ceremony last week, the creativity on offer every May isn’t just an enriching experience for those who enjoy the arts.

Brighton Festival, Brighton Fringe, Artists Open Houses, HOUSE 2012 and The Great Escape attract visitors to the city in vast numbers, pump some |£20 million into the hotels, restaurants, shops and pubs in these three weeks every year, and every year the people of Brighton and Hove are enthusiastic and welcoming hosts.

We rely on each other and I’m sure I speak for each of the Festival organisers in saying a very big thank you to businesses and residents alike for all your support in making the Festival season in Brighton and Hove this year such a success.

Highlights My highlights? Well, this has been a festival of many firsts, including 28 commissions and premieres in this year’s programme.

It is the first year the guest director has joined the mayor in leading the Children’s Parade – our vibrant and energetic annual opening for the festival.

About 5,000 schoolchildren (and their parents and teachers) worked for six months to explore the idea of ‘storytelling’ and on May 5 created an extraordinary procession through the city centre, watched by 20,000 supporters.

Associate company dreamthinkspeak took us for the first time to a warehouse in Shoreham, continuing their tradition of performing in unusual spaces but pushing their innovation and creativity in a new and exciting direction with a meditation on Hamlet called The Rest is Silence.

It has proved so popular that we’ve extended the run for two weeks beyond the Festival, until June 9, before it goes on to be a part of the World Shakespeare Festival with London International Festival of Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company – a fantastic Brighton export of which we can all be proud.

Vanessa Redgrave returned to the stage of the Theatre Royal Brighton for the first time in decades for a world premiere staged interpretation of Wadad Makdisi Cortas’ memoir A World I Loved, which was a moving, informative and passionate piece of work.

Matthew Bourne, hailed as the undisputed king of dance theatre’, made his long-awaited Brighton Festival debut, and packed houses for every performance were clearly delighted by his choreographic elegance and wit.

Live Transmission, a re-working of the music of Joy Division by Scanner and the Heritage Orchestra, lifted the roof off Brighton Dome in a wonderful world premiere that has the music industry buzzing, and on Saturday night a 20-metre high structure built from shipping containers came to life on the seafront, with an audience of more than 10,000 people celebrating the final weekend of the Festival. It has been an exhilarating three weeks.

But just as we benefit from the way people right across the city welcome the Festival, we are incredibly fortunate to have such a supportive, challenging and highly curious audience joining us every year to explore the new commissions, large-scale outdoor performance, lively debate, thought-provoking art installations and high quality free events that we produce.

It’s thanks to their dedication and belief in the festival that we can programme the adventurous work that we do.

As a result we have met our financial targets and have achieved a higher ticket income than ever before – a real success in this difficult financial climate.

Evidence of our audience’s engagement has been even more apparent this year, with Twitter and Facebook, our website and The Argus’s website seeing individuals interacting with us, the artists and each other in a very direct and open way and in huge numbers.

Debates I’ve loved watching debates taking place, often immediately after a performance: was Land’s End in the Old Municipal Market a wonderful, witty and intriguing theatrical experience, mixing technology, installation and live performance in a totally new way, or was it baffling and obscure?

You came, you saw and you told us, and really, really disagreed with each other. It seems to me that’s certainly what a Festival is for!

Vanessa’s introduction to the Festival in our brochure also described her thoughts on what festivals can do to provoke discussion: “An arts festival is a rich opportunity to listen to other points of view and to learn from others’ experiences and to be inspired into action”.

We wanted to offer a wide range of opportunities for our audience to listen and participate, from our books and debates strand, to our increasingly popular “morning after” series of discussions with the artists.

Topics as diverse as land taxation in The Killing Fields, the banking crisis in Be Outraged – There Are Alternatives!, the language of diplomacy in The Unsaid and Index on Censorship’s Where Do You Draw the Line? have sparked some fascinating discussions, which have again continued online and in the Twittersphere.

It has indeed been an extraordinary three weeks. Artistic organisations across the city have come together with a wonderful spirit of energy and cooperation, and our commissioning and producing partners within the city deserve special thanks.

We have also all benefited from the new achievements of HOUSE 2012 this year and an enlivened and busier-than-ever Fringe.

All of us, together with funders, sponsors, supporters and donors make the May Effect possible. Some are saying it’s the best Festival yet. But of course there’s next year to come…

What did you think of this year’s Festival?