THE campaign to promote the North-East has progressed in leaps and bounds in recent years.

The Passionate People, Passionate Places theme has been a resounding success and the tourism industry, so vital to our future prosperity, is moving forward as a result.

In Tees Valley, the emphasis has been placed firmly on staging high-quality events to bring people to the area, and the BBC Proms in the Park on Saturday night was the perfect example of that strategy coming to life.

Rewind a few years and who would have thought that Middlesbrough town centre would have been the location for one of five satellite events supporting the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London?

For the 5,582 people who were there, it was a night never to be forgotten: wonderful music, spectacular scenes of colourful flag-waving and priceless national exposure for Middlesbrough, the Tees Valley and the wider North-East.

Our congratulations to all those who helped make the dream come true. There were many who considered the notion of bringing the event to Middlesbrough as tilting at windmills, but the vision and ambition of the organisers paid off and they deserve enormous credit.

The challenge now is to bring the Proms back to the region. We have proved that we are capable of staging a world-class event and now we must keep the momentum going.

We are delighted to hear that the campaign is already under way, with the rallying cry going out to the likes of One NorthEast and the five councils across the Tees Valley. That must be the start of a sustained initiative to make the BBC realise that they need look no further than the region of passionate people and passionate places when they plan next year's event.

Our call can be summed up in one word: Encore!