CONCERT-goers in Hampshire are set for a bumper year after the demise of Glastonbury Festival.

The cancellation of this year's major Somerset outdoor music event is good news for the summer and Easter concerts in the county.

Both Gosport Festival in the summer and the Fareham and Gosport Festival in April have previously lost out to competition from Glastonbury. Major headline acts have exclusive contracts with Glaston-bury, so they traditionally turn down other outdoor events.

However, with the huge rival out of the way, organisers predict boom times for Gosport, which attracted Robbie Williams in the mid-1990s and the first Queen concert after Freddie Mercury's death.

Hampshire county councillor Peter Chegwyn, organiser of rock concerts in Gosport and Fareham, said: "A large weight has been lifted off our shoulders in terms of organising the concerts.

"Glastonbury is rightly a premier outdoor music festival for the summer, but it sucks the life out of the concerts on the South Coast.

"We could have had some star turns in the past, but no amount of incentive would bring them here. Now we could have the pick."

Gosport Festival, at Brockhurst in the first week of August, featured Bill Wyman last year, but there are plans to announce bigger, more current star names in the next two weeks. The Gosport and Fareham Festival, at various venues, is between April 12 and 15.