FINAL preparations are being made for Bradford's biggest party of the year next week.

The three-day Bradford Festival, including the annual Mela, takes place in City Park from Friday, June 12, to Sunday, June 14, with more than 40 artists staging a host of free shows and activities.

One of the highlights will see women from Yorkshire Life Aquatic performing interactive and comical ‘dry land synchronised swimming' sessions in City Park's mirror pool.

Another attraction on offer is The Unfair, a fairground designed to allow people to constructively express their anger, by Leeds-based artists Ellie Harrison, Bethany Wells and Adam Young. Participants will be able to play a game of ‘Angry Jenga', write a note and ‘bottle it up' or sing along to Angry Karaoke.

Sheffield-based Hype Dance Company will perform boxing-inspired show Savage Beauty at the festival, and are also offering workshops where people can learn basic boxing and dance moves from the show.

Local artist, Mussarat Rahman, will help people make colourful spice boards, kites, Indian bowls, scrap purses, bags, flower brooches or corsages and ‘gloop soup' with the help of masterful ‘chai wallahs' in an eastern fantasy kitchen.

Local arts organisation, Sponge Tree, will help children build a beautiful play den in City Library and make ‘winged creations' from recycled books, and master calligrapher Razwan Ul-Haq will teach beautiful and timeless Arabic calligraphy.

African drumming workshops will be offered by Motivate Yorkshire.

People can learn how to capture someone's likeness in a traditional hand-cut shadow portrait. Those attending the workshop will draw a companion's head-and-shoulders profile in an antique silhouette artist's chair, then reduce it to a black and white miniature under the expert supervision of local artist Simon Warner.

Festival goers will be able to create their very own story by making beautiful instant books or hand made magazines using collage, coloured pens and pencils, simple printing techniques, stencils and stamps in a workshop run by Bradford visual artists Jean McEwan and Lorain Behrans' Loosely Bound.

Visitors to City Park will be able to make colourful bags, aprons, pump bags and cushion covers from recycled material with Bradford-based arts company, Creative Flare.

Shipley arts collective, Hive Bradford, will help people create a giant stitched, knitted and crocheted ‘line of local colour' art installation.

This continuous creation will celebrate the connections between Bradford's textile heritage and its people.

Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, Portfolio Holder for Employment, Skills and Culture, said: "Bradford is a great place for artists, there's a real wealth of experience and talent here. This is a chance for these artists to share their passion and inspire people to have a go.

"There will be a great range of activities, all of which are free of charge. Everyone is welcome."

For the full line-up, visit bradfordfestival.org.uk.