T in the Park-style campsite for Wigtown Book Festival

Wigtown Book Festival is joining events like T in the Park and Glastonbury by setting up a visitor campsite.

The Book Shop in Wigtown. Picture: Robert Perry

The Dumfries and Galloway festival is staging its biggest ever programme when it gets under way later this month with 236 authors set to take part in talks, workshops and signings.

Last year, organisers said 10,000 people visited the village during the festival but accommodation is hard to organise.

It is now opening a campsite in Duncan Park, a short walk from the centre of Wigtown, which will have portable toilets and showers and a cooking area - and cost £12 a night.

EventScotland is supporting the organisation of the site, while extra ferries are also being put on from Northern Ireland.

The festival runs between September 23 and October 2 with speakers including Kenny MacAskill, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, TV presenter Janet Ellis and journalist Sian Williams.

Artistic director Adrian Turpin said: “In 2015 around 22,000 tickets were issued for our events and over 10,000 people visited the Wigtown Book Festival; normally the town’s population is 900.

“We’ve been very lucky to work with EventScotland and introduce a campsite connected to the book festival in the area for the first time to help the town accommodate the population swell.”

He added: “Wigtown is Scotland’s National Book Town, it’s a great place to come and discover books, meet people and see the area that inspired some of Robert Burns’s best work.

“As one of the world’s best natural beauty spots, Dumfries and Galloway is famed for its incredible green landscape, rolling hills and views of the Milky Way.

“I hope that the new camping and ferry crossing opportunities encourages more people to come to the area and the 2016 Wigtown Book Festival.”