PLANS have been announced to allow 20,000 more people to attend a Hampshire music festival.

Organisers behind Boomtown, which this year saw around 60,000 people though it gates, have revealed the figure ahead of a meeting to get residents’ feedback.

Under the proposals, the festival, held annual at Matterley Bowl, near Winchester, would increase its capacity it 76,000 for the next event on the weekend of August 9-12.

Then in 2019 the size would increase again, allowing a further 4,000 music fans.

Now a number of concerned councillors have arranged a meeting with an officer from Winchester City Council’s licensing department to discuss the issues.

Concerned residents will also be able to ask any questions they have at the meeting today from 3.30pm to 6.30pm in the Itchen Abbas & Avington Village Hall, in Main Road.

As previously reported, Boomtown has announced world famous alternative rock band Gorillaz as the first headline act for the 2018 festival, which will mark its tenth anniversary.

Fresh from completing a huge world tour for their recent album Humanz, the Gorillaz are set to enthral with their superior musicianship and visual mastery, in the remastered Lion’s Den amphitheatre.

A spokesman for the festival said: “Having the Gorillaz perform on our newly rebuilt Lion’s Den arena is beyond anything we could have imagined when we first started 10 years ago!”

However, the festival has also faced controversial headlines in recent years following a number of incidents.

Last year Olivia Christopher was found dead in a tent after consuming a variety of drugs, and in 2014, Ellie Rowe,18, from Somerset died after snorting Ketamine.

Organisers have tried to solve the issue by having an on-site drug testing facility run by The Loop, and this year Hampshire Constabulary confirmed that crime levels at Boomtown had fallen.