Carnage for a Cause was to be an all-age, two-day charity music festival this weekend featuring 40 metal and hardcore bands, such as Till Death Do Us Part, Thy Art is Murder, Gunsquad, Shotgun Silence and Knife to a Gunfight.

The concert was to be held at Bourne House, the former PCYC premises, in Short St.

However, St Agnes Parish, which owns the building, and the police pulled the pin on the event because of a “complete lack of organisation”.

Michael Tierney, of Tierney Property Services, who acts a consultant to the parish, accused the promoters of being “unorganised”.

“The organisers haven’t been truthful with us over the past few weeks,” he said.

“We always thought they were well advanced in their discussions with the police about this event but the police had absolutely no knowledge of it.

“They said they had accredited breath-testers, but the police had issued none.”

Mr Tierney also said some of the band names were “inappropriate”.

“When we found out what some of the bands were called we thought it was totally inappropriate for the St Agnes Parish to be involved.”

The event had originally been scheduled for April but was postponed by the host, the PCYC, because it was on the same weekend as Hastings Battle of the Bands.

Event organiser Levi Sampson said he was “extremely annoyed” the event would not go ahead.

“This concert has been planned since January. It was already postponed once and now it’s been totally cancelled,” he said.

Mr Sampson said he didn’t know he had to speak to police well in advance of the concert and left it until yesterday to contact them.

He also said it was going to be a hard task to get in contact with the bands and the 500 people who were expected to attend and let them know it was off.

“I don’t know how I am going to do it because I don’t have the telephone numbers of most of these people. The only way I can let them know is through Myspace,” he said.

Mr Sampson believes the main reason for the last-minute cancellation was the names of some of the bands.

“They didn’t like some of the band names, but that’s just ridiculous. It’s a heavy metal concert – what do they expect,” he said.

“Now we are going to have the worst name in the industry.”

Extra security will be placed at the venue over the weekend to deal with any people who turn up.