SOME 20,000 visitors travelled to Bovington for this year's Tankfest - the biggest crowd since the festival began.

For the third year in a row the event, which boasts living history encampments, battle re-enactments and historic armour displays, was a sell out.

Set over two days at the Tank Museum at Bovington, Tankfest is a celebration of the history of armoured fighting vehicles - and the service personnel who operated them.

A huge draw this year was the museum's Tiger Collection, which attracted visitors from as far as Australia and Japan.

The museum's Nik Wyness told the Daily Echo: "This is actually the fifteenth Tankfest that we have put on. The first one, in 2000, attracted 1,000 visitors. In 2011 we hit 10,000 visitors, now in 2017 we have 20,000 visitors.

"So it is an event that has grown quite considerably since it first started."

Tankfest not only featured a range of historic vehicles dating from the First and Second World War, the British Army also put on a display of modern vehicles used on operations today.

Nik said: "One of the reasons Tankfest sold out so quickly was because of the enormous appetite for people to come and see the Tiger Collection which is our latest exhibition.

"Our living history battle re-enactment always goes down well. It is a spectacle with lots of vehicles, lots of people in period uniforms, and, of course, lots of bangs which everybody likes.

"But what people really come to see is our historic armour displays. And the other thing that makes Tankfest unique is the British Army bringing about 10 vehicles and putting on a display that you really cannot see anywhere else in the country."

Tickets for next year's Tankfest will go on sale in early July.