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Here, the journalist who broke the story, Craig Williams, recounts the whirlwind experience of Glasgow's very own Banksy exhibition and the impact it has had on the city.

Less than two weeks into its two-and-a-bit month run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), it’s easy to get a measure of the early success of Banksy’s first solo show for over a decade.

Before a ball was even kicked and fully three days before it opened its doors to the public, a man with a thick French accent, his satchel stuffed with copies of that day's special edition Herald newspaper which revealed the news to the world, quizzed me on how he might gain entry. 

He booked himself on the very first train to Glasgow from York that morning, he told me, when he got wind of the news. It would have been a flight ticket, he added, if he’d been in his native France.

Then there’s the dearth of tickets online and the daily queues that form outside GoMA each morning populated by locals and tourists alike keen to snap up gold-dust walk-in tickets.

The Herald:

Data from international digital rail and coach technology platform Trainline also showed that the number of passengers travelling to Glasgow stations rose 14 per cent in the first week of the exhibition compared to the previous week.

On the ground in Glasgow, there’s a tangible buzz and excitement you can almost taste on the city streets that only someone with the colossal cultural clout Banksy has could conjure up almost out of thin air.

The kilted tour guides in Royal Exchange Square appear to have an extra spring in their step as their normally fine-tuned spiel on Glasgow’s love affair with accessorising statues with traffic cones receives a rehash to incorporate the fresh Banksy stamp of approval. 

A stone’s throw away from the exhibition, staff at Tam Shepherds Trick Shop – Glasgow's famous magic, joke and fancy dress shop – on Queen Street are busy debating whether or not the elusive artist has paid visit to the shop of choice for anonymous street artists in need of a disguise.

Meanwhile, a few yards further along the street, a blank gap is all that remains of a suspected Banksy stencil of a rat holding a drill that appeared on a wooden panel before being ripped or cut from the wall hours after word got out of its appearance.

Then there was the hoax Banksy stencil off Buchanan Street by two local street artists that sparked a social media frenzy before it was unceremoniously painted over by the council.

And in amongst the maelstrom, the exhibition has also forced ScotRail into self-critique mode in noting that it needs to update its list of top museums in Scotland to include GoMA in the wake of Banksy’s arrival, while also saying that it is now surely the time for an orange traffic cone emoji. 

The Herald:

City coffers will continue to be bolstered over the course of the summer as thousands more Banksy fans make the pilgrimage from all corners of the globe for the exhibition.

With talk of some big celeb names coming to Glasgow in the coming weeks for private viewings, the economic benefits to Scotland’s biggest city in playing host to Banksy’s exhibition show no signs of fading any time soon.

Added to that, is the intangible cultural capital that comes with the territory of having the hottest ticket in town on our doorstep.