A HAMPSHIRE music festival has been sold in an exclusive deal with a major entertainment firm which hopes to set to make it an event on the scale of Glastonbury.

Owners of Victorious festival in Portsmouth who sold off a majority stake in Britain’s second largest festival operator, Global Entertainment, for an undisclosed sum.

The event attracted more than 150,000 people last year and is on the verge of becoming one of the UK’s biggest music events.

The founders claim Global, who own the Capital and Heart radio brands and Board Masters festival in Cornwall, would help to bring some of the world’s ‘top class’ artists to Portsmouth, putting Victorious directly in competition with of the likes of V Festival and Glastonbury.

Speaking about the sale, James Ralls, Victorious co-owner said: “I think we can now compete with all the other festivals in the country. This is what we had in mind. Hopefully we can be the biggest music festival in the south and one of the biggest in the country.

“Global have got the contacts that we simply haven’t. They’ve got links to bigger and better artists.

“Last year we said we wanted to make Victorious the Glastonbury of the south. That may have seemed a bit stupid then, but this is what we meant.”

Under the terms of the deal, the festival is set to stay at Southsea Common in the city with James, and his colleagues Ben Miles and Andy Marsh set to remain at the helm while Global would operate as a background consultant who will provide marketing and logistical support.

The sale follows news that the festival had added an extra day for 2017 with Madness headlining on the Friday night. other acts appearing this years include Elbow, Stereophonics, The Charlatans, olly Murs, Rita Ora, Franz Ferdinand and Jake Bugg.

The festival was founded in 2012 and takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend generating over £5.8m a year for the local economy.