A major piping championship which has brought thousands of visitors to Moray over the last two years has secured further backing from the local authority.
Moray Council has pledged to give financial support to the European Pipe Band Championships if Forres is successful in its bid to host the event for a further three years.
Forres has hosted the championships for the past two years, with more than 20,000 people descending on the town for the event this summer.
The event will be held in Grant Park again next year, but organisers Forres Events are keen to continuing hosting it until 2018, and are in the process of applying to the Royal Scots Pipe Band Association for the chance to do so.
Yesterday, members of the policy and resources committee agreed that if their bid was successful, the council would contribute £15,000 towards the cost of staging the championships in 2016 and £10,000 for the following two years.
A request to provide a guarantee against loss of up to £50,000 a year was rejected.
Committee chairman Councillor Allan Wright said: “The championships have proved extremely successful and over the past two summers have attracted large crowds to Forres and the committee felt it was appropriate to continue financial backing in the event of the renewed bid being successful.
“However, members were not inclined to agree to underwrite any loss which the championships might incur in future years.”
This year, a total of 117 bands and 46 drum majors travelled from as far as Australia, Switzerland and the US for the championships.