GLASGOW will continue to host TRNSMT festival for ‘as long as possible’, organiser Geoff Ellis has said.

The music mogul believes the festival could become the biggest of its kind after its decision to expand to over two weekends.

Speaking ahead of the 2018 festival taking place between June 29 and July 8, the DF Concerts boss said the city will reap the benefits of the investment both economically and culturally.

He added: “Glasgow has a very ambitious target of getting another 1 million overnight visitors by 2023 and to achieve that, it needs major events and things that are going to bring people in. t

“The benefit of people coming is the economic spend. It also works on a cultural level because the BBC are filming it and there’s eight to nine million viewers.

“It brings in around £10m benefit to the local economy. People who own bars, clubs and restaurants in the city centre reported having their best weekend of the year, or certainly up until the point of TRNSMT last year.

“The city has done very well out of it. The cultural and economical benefits are huge at no cost to the city or council. We’re bringing something that brings money directly to the council coffers and projecting a city that is attractive to tourists and music fans. The city gets all the benefit of our investment. Its win-win really.”

DF Concerts took the decision to cancel T in the Park in 2017, following a move from Balado airfield to Strathallan Castle - leading to additional regulations being put in place.

Organisers instead decided to opt for a metropolitan festival at Glasgow Green, which Ellis said is ‘working well’.

“There has been a growth in recent years of metropolitan festivals. You’ve got Hyde park in London which is not camping so people are able to go and stay in a hotel or go back to their own home. The rise of Airbnb has helped that. I can see a good future of metropolitan events and TRNSMT has become one of the biggest of those kind worldwide.

“We intend to keep TRNSMT in Glasgow for as long we can.

"Glasgow works so well because it’s the biggest city in Scotland and it's got a great city centre space which not many cities have.

"Edinburgh doesn't have somewhere like Glasgow Green. The Glaswegian audiences whether it's at King Tuts, Barrowlands or TRNSMT, they are the most passionate in the world. It's not just me saying that, I know that from talking to artists and playing concerts all over the world. There's nothing like a Glasgow crowd."

After switching to a two-weekend model, the scope for attracting artists was even bigger than ever before.

As well as securing typical festival acts like Liam Gallagher and Arctic Monkeys, Ellis and his team brought in Queen + Adam Lambert which would usually be seen on a stadium tour.

Ellis explains: "You try make things happen together and I made a conscious decision to have J Hus and Krept X Konan on the Liam Gallagher day because we felt it was important to step away from a male dominated crowd and we want a broad spread of audience.

"Liam had been talking to his son who said he would like some reggae or grime or something else on the bill and we agreed.

"We’ve got Wolf Alice in there which is probably not the most obvious choice. It's a conscious thing to have it appealing to a wide audience particularly for the first weekend for someone buying a weekend ticket. They might not love everyone but there's someone on the bill to at least make it worth it for them.

"We don't want to be too genre specific. TRNSMT shouldn't be about one set of music fans it should be accessible to fans of good music."