HOTELS and guest house in and around Huddersfield are preparing to welcome music lovers attending the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Thousands of people are expected to flock to the internationally-renowned festival which starts today.
The 10-day event is this year centred around the Lawrence Batley Theatre with Huddersfield Town Hall, St Paul's Hall, Bates Mill in Queen Street South and St Thomas's Church in Manchester Road also being used as venues.
The festival's marketing director Sheralyn Bonner said thousands of people were expected to attend this year's - the 29th festival.
And Huddersfield Tourist Information Centre in Albion Street is also expecting a busy few days.
"Many people book tickets in advance, and for the first time this year people can book online, but once the festival starts we get very busy with people wanting accomodation guides, tickets and general information," she said.
Sheralyn said the 50 events in this year's festival aimed to be accessible to all.
"We have a new festival director, Graham McKenzie, and are hoping to attract people from all over the world with a broad range of events," she said.
"We are hanging on to the things that Huddersfield has been so renowned for, which provides us with the international reputation we have got, but also under Graham's directorship aim to provide things a little bit more unexpected."
Sheralyn said around 3,000 tickets had already been bought for the festival, with brochures sent to people in America, Australia, across Europe and Scandinavia.
A spokesman for the Huddersfield Hotel in Kirkgate said the hotel was fully booked for the duration of the festival.
"We're full with visitors to the festival many from Italy and Portugal. We always do really well out of it every year," he said.
