THIS year's Summer Pops has been hailed as the most successful festival yet.

The event attracted more than 100,000 fans, the biggest-ever audience turn-out, and some 30,000 up on last year.

The 2003 Pops also featured 32 shows, compared to just 22 last year.

Profits from the event have yet to be calculated as an audit has not yet been completed.

But the success has been put down to the wide variety of acts on show, this year including a sell-out five-day run by Bolton comedian Peter Kay, a sell-out show by Australian Pink Floyd and boy-band Blue putting on a second show due to popular demand.

Others who pulled in big crowds to the Kings Dock big top were Modfather Paul Weller, local girls Atomic Kitten and a sell-out performance from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

The legend of soul James Brown also put in a sell-out show despite making his fans wait due to a delay on the train journey up to the event.

Over two thirds of the acts that played the 4,500 seater venue sold out while the others were not far behind it according to Chas Cole of CMP, promoter of the Summer Pops.

He said: "This year has seen more people than ever before. In terms of reasons why I think it is because of the diversity that the Summer Pops has had this year.

"We have seen screaming teenage fans for Blue and Atomic Kitten but also a sell-out show for the Classical Pops.

"The highlights of this year were when we sold 20,000 Peter Kay tickets in three hours, a spectacular Australian Pink Floyd gig which was a sellout and an anxious wait for James Brown when he was delayed on a train but still managed to do a fantastic show."

"We have already started looking at next year and hoping to make it better.

"We are setting a high standard which we want to keep to and build on and by the time we reach 2008 we hope to have an event which will be internationally renowned."

Liverpool City Council leader Mike Storey said: "The Summer Pops has become synonymous with the city so much so that I think it should be called the Liverpool Pops.

"It has gone from strength-to-strength. It has become an important part of the spring and summer lineup. Starting with the River Festival, right through to the Summer Pops and the Mathew Street Festival.

"It is a major part of a whole host of events that draws in crowds throughout the spring and summer."

DEMANDS THAT KEPT THE STARS HAPPY BACKSTAGE

SUPERGROUP ZZ Top must like to spread their legs while on tour. The three-piece band insisted that they each had separate dressing rooms.

The organisers were even more surprised when the group that has been together for three decades arrived at the Summer Pops tent in five different tour buses.

Not all the stars have quite such a love for excess. Notorious hell-raiser Alice Cooper did not ask for any alcohol backstage.

But the Godfather of soul, James Brown, had a touch of class asking for Dom Perignon.

Jools Holland seems to have treated the whole thing somewhat like a holiday.

He wanted 12 postcards of Liverpool, complete with first class stamps, in his dressing room. The most unusual request fell to Simply Red, who asked that the air conditioning was not on in the dressing rooms so that it was the same temperature as the rest of the tent.

The majority of the requirements of the stars playing the Summer Pops were not extravagant and strangely it was several performers' love for herbal drinks.

A number of artists like to drink Throat Coat, tea which is only available from very select stores, mainly in the capital, and Gatorade which can be bought from the US.

Rather than bring their own, the artists asked Summer Pops organisers to provide the drinks which are thought to be particularly good for warming up the vocal cords.