Glasgow plans Mardi Gras carnival

The parade got this year's festival off to a colourful start

Glasgow's annual West End Festival has got under way - and organisers are planning a "full Mardi Gras carnival" for next year's event.

An event full of costumes, colour, dance and diversity is promised to mark the art festival's 10th anniversary.

This year's West End Festival (WEF) provides a platform for 400 events across the next two weeks.

About 600 participants took part in the opening parade, including 30 costume groups and seven samba bands.

Three music stages were also erected in Byres Road, which was closed to traffic for the duration of Sunday's event.

Ambitious and exciting

Thousands of people turned out to throng the streets, alternately basking in the sunshine and avoiding the showers.

Looking forward to next year's event, festival director Michael Dale said: "Mardi Gras is understood in every corner of the world and it's an event tailor-made for a gallous, party-loving city like Glasgow.

"They love to party in Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Now Glasgow's joining the Mardi Gras calendar."

Opening parade in pictures

He added: "This is a natural evolutionary development for the WEF. We were planning to do something very special for our 10th anniversary and Mardi Gras seemed like an obvious development.

"It dances straight into Glasgow's excellent 'Scotland with Style' initiative and reinforces the first minister's policy of promoting Scotland as one nation, many cultures."

WEF chairman Liz Scobie said: "Our Mardi Gras plans are designed to provide a highly attractive and colourful focus which will increase our already impressive visitor numbers while strengthening the scope and scale of all the existing community events.

"It's ambitious and exciting."