HUNDREDS of clubbers have been told 'the party is off' after council bosses pulled the plug on a major DJ house event.

Estate managers at Lancaster City Council called off the six-hour dance epic - due to be held at Lancaster's Ashton Hall on Saturday, July 27 - claiming party organisers had failed to meet a number of conditions of the hire of the building.

Club music promoters and magazine publisher Recharge had booked top regional DJs, printed up hundreds of t-shirts, laid on coaches and hired specialist door staff for this weekend's event.

But Recharge said everything had to be cancelled at short notice after they received a phone call on Tuesday night (July 23) from Lancaster City Council telling them they could not use the venue.

Recharge operations director Mark Radzan said: "The council said they were concerned about things like sweat damaging paintings and people climbing up drainpipes."

Around 500 guests were expected to turn up at the event, billed as the first of a possible series of parties attracting big DJ names into the Kendal and Lancaster area.

Mr Radzan said the 11th hour cancellation had left seven DJs with nowhere to perform this weekend.

"We wrote to the chief executive several months ago outlining our plans for the night.

We have had this event pencilled in for two months and only yesterday (Tuesday) we were still being told we had got the venue.

It was going to be a big event for us and we have got our name to consider."

Lancaster City Council communications officer Gill Haigh said she could not comment further for legal reasons but in a statement from the council she said: "Unfortunately, Recharge Magazine have failed to meet a number of the conditions of hire and do not therefore have a contract for the hire of the venue.

Regretfully, under these circumstances the City Council has had no option but to inform Recharge Magazines that their booking is invalid, and that the event cannot proceed."

After a last-minute phone around of local venues, such as Lancaster's Sugarhouse, Recharge decided it was too late to host the event elsewhere but have instead opted to postpone the party to a date to be confirmed.

DJs expected to play at the gig had included Tony Walker of the Ministry of Sound and Ki Creighton from Carlisle's Lucid.