Sports event competitors celebrate at the 2016 festival. Photo: Stuart Holmes

A major outdoors festival in the Lake District will move to June as it plans to expand its events.

Next year’s Keswick Mountain Festival will run in early June, three weeks later than it has previously been staged.

Organisers say the move should encourage more people to camp during the four-day gathering and will also be a better date for swimming events on Derwent Water.

They said: “The move follows a very successful 2016 event, the biggest in the festival’s history, which saw an increase of 14 per cent in visitors to the festival village on Crow Park in Keswick and contributed £1.8m to the local economy.”

Arrangements have already been made to double the size of the KMF campsite to accommodate more than 2,000 people. The festival team said this will allow them to enhance other areas of the event’s extensive programme, bringing more visitors to the area in the crucial early summer season.

Festival director Nicola Meadley said: “Keswick Mountain Festival has been a fantastic success story over the last decade.

“The event was founded by Keswick Tourism Association, which has continued to offer brilliant support, and we are grateful for that and the enthusiasm for the festival from a huge range of great local businesses, accommodation providers and venues.

“Thanks to the National Trust and Theatre by the Lake, we are also really fortunate to have such a great site for the festival village on Crow Park.

“We are really excited about the potential to make Keswick Mountain Festival even bigger and better. The essential shape of the event will not change and we will continue to deliver a mix of activities and attractions that are firmly rooted in the outdoors and offer something for the whole family.

“When our full plans for 2017 are revealed, I am confident that they will prove to be very popular with the local community and with exhibitors and sponsors, resulting in more visitors and more money coming into Keswick.”

Stand-up paddle boarding in action during this year's festival. Photo: Stuart Holmes

Keswick Mountain Festival was first run in 2007 and offers a mix of sporting events, outdoor activities, guided walks, live music, high-profile speakers, camping, and family-friendly attractions. Visitors to Keswick during KMF weekend now spend an average of £170 each on non-festival activities.

Sporting event entries are on sale now. Tickets for other activities for 2017, along with festival weekend passes, including concerts, are scheduled to go on sale towards the end of November.

The speaker programme and details of the live music line up will be announced in January 2017.

Keswick Mountain Festival will take place from 8 to 11 June.