IT'S been hailed the most successful Bournemouth Air Festival ever with record crowds and stunning displays.

Now watch some incredible time lapse footage of a packed-out Bournemouth beach, courtesy of the RNLI.

An amazing 1.3 million festival-goers visited Bournemouth with more than 200,000 visitors on Thursday, 235,000 on Friday as well as 55,000 for the Night Air displays on that day and concerts at Boscombe Pier.

The glorious weather continued on Saturday, and with the Red Arrows opening the flying with their third display in Bournemouth, huge numbers of people packed the beaches and cliff tops before noon.

All our pictures from Bournemouth Air Festival 2013

By the time the Typhoon had closed the flying displays, 400,000 people had visited the Festival site with another 42,000 flocking to the final evening of Night Air, making it the busiest day in the history of the town.

And it wasn’t just the beaches and cliff tops that saw record crowd levels; out to sea almost 1,000 boats were anchored amongst the Royal Navy vessels.

The Festival drew to a close on Sunday with 275,000 people ashore while more than 500 boats bobbed on the waters among the Royal Navy’s largest ever presence at the event, with six vessels appearing including the Type-23 frigate HMS Northumberland,

At Boscombe, Wave105FM presented headline acts including Blue, Stooshe, The Feeling, Lisa Stansfield, Kodaline and Newton Faulkner who performed to crowds of more than 12,000 people.

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Jon Weaver, Air Festival director, said: "It has been an amazing event this year, the sun shined, the entertainment was superb and more than a million people came to enjoy some of the world’s best aviation teams perform spectacular displays.

"It was fantastic to see the Reds flying in their classic nine ship formation across Bournemouth's skyline, the magnificent Typhoon roaring through the skies and seeing the Royal Navy’s eight-gun salute ending the Festival on a high.

"Like many Festival-goers we were disappointed that the Vulcan was unable to fly due to technical difficulties but people didn’t let it dampen their spirits - there is always next year!

“It’s been brilliant to have had such appreciative crowds, helping to make it one of our biggest and best ever Festivals so far.”

Commodore Jamie Miller, CBE of the Royal Navy, said; “The best show yet with so many people seeing their Royal Navy and Royal Marines, our ships and aircraft, meeting the men and women who serve and being enthused.

"Thank you Bournemouth. More of the same next year – that is an order not a request! See you next year if you invite us!"

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And Flight Lieutenant Leon Creese, pilot of the BBMF Lancaster said; “It is always an honour to fly the wonderful aircraft of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

"Our aims are to remember the past and inspire future generations and I take great pride in playing my part in achieving both of these aims at the spectacular Bournemouth Air Festival.”

The dates for the 2014 Air Festival have been confirmed Thursday 28th August - Sunday 31st August.