AFTER years of losing money, Bingley Music Live brought in a profit of over £210,000 last year.

The success helped secure the future of the Bradford Council-run festival, which had made a loss of almost a quarter of a million pounds the previous year.

And the council is hoping this year will prove to be a similar financial success, with organisers saying this coming weekend’s festival is the “fastest-selling yet”.

The three-day event at Myrtle Park usually gets a taxpayer subsidy of between £60,000 and £200,000 a year, depending on attendance.

Before last year’s festival, which was headlined by Manic Street Preachers, The Kaiser Chiefs and The Wombats, councillors questioned the amount of money the local authority puts up to subsidise the event.

Steve Hartley, the council’s Strategic Director – Place had told a meeting last July: “If it doesn’t break even this year, then we will have to look at the viability of the council running this event.”

The concerns came after numbers attending the 2016 festival fell by 27 per cent, partly due to torrential rain early in the weekend. However, recently-released figures show that the 2017 festival made £434,000 more than the 2016 festival.

In 2015 the festival cost £1,010,054 to run, but only brought in £946,380, leaving a deficit of £63,674.

In 2016 the cost was £1,044,633, but due to plummeting attendance the income was only £822,143 – leaving a deficit of £222,490.

Bingley Music Live 2017 cost £1,115,126 to put on, and brought in £1,327,602 – making a profit of £212,476.

The success was attributed to warm weather and a strong, indie-centric line up. And the success is likely to be repeated this year, with tickets selling faster than last year.

The festival, which runs from Friday, August 31, to Sunday, September 2, is headlined by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Jake Bugg and Shed Seven.

A Bradford Council spokesperson said: “Ticket sales for this year’s Bingley Music Live are going really well so much so that due to demand we released more weekend tickets. So far this has been the fastest-selling year to date and we are looking at another sell-out year for this fantastic festival. We do still have limited number of weekend and day tickets available so if people want to come and see some great music they need to be quick.”