Victorious Festival in line for five year contract extension

Portsmouth Tory culture boss Linda Symes will decide whether to give the event’s bosses a new contract, allowing them to stage it in Southsea until at least 2025 after their current deal up until 2020 expires.

A report set to go before Cllr Symes this morning reveals that the total number of tickets sold for the event – which this year featured the likes of Oasis legend Noel Gallagher, DJ Mark Ronson and Manic Street Preachers – over the past three years has continued to grow from a base level of 63,000 in 2014 to the current estimated level for 2016 of 110,000.

It demonstrates a 75 per cent increase in attendance at the festival over the past three years – which the council says makes it ‘one of the most successful events annually held in the city’. The Victorious site ‘continues to be well planned and carefully organised so as to put the audience at the heart of the offer,’ adds the report, put together by the council’s director of culture and city development.

Cllr Symes will hold a meeting over the plans at the civic offices.