Scotland’s national tourism agency has taken over promotion of a festival marking the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn because of disastrous ticket sales.
Fewer than 1,000 individual tickets have been sold for the event in June, which was expected to attract 45,000 visitors over three days.
Although another 1,400 tickets have been allocated to the travel trade, organisers hoped around 15,000 people would visit each day.
The event which includes reenactments of the battle and a clan gathering was due to take place over three days from June 28 to 30 and has received £400,000 of taxpayers’ money.
However, it is understood that VisitScotland are considering reducing the event to just two days.
Ticket sales for the Monday have been suspended by booking agent TicketSoup.com but VisitScotland say no official announcement about changes to the programme will be made until later this week.
Although the Bannockburn Live website still advertises a three-day event, Ticketsoup.com said tickets for the Monday have been “taken off-sale”.
There have been concerns about whether Stirling could cope with Bannockburn Live and Armed Forces Day, which is expected to attract around 40,000 people to the city over the same weekend.
Councillors have agreed to carry out an audit to investigate how the decision for Stirling to host Armed Forces Day which will cost the local authority around £250,000 was made.
It emerged last week that Provost Mike Robbins approached the Ministry of Defence about hosting the event several months before a decision-making committee was even formed.
There have also been criticisms that the MoD is trying to undermine support for Scottish independence by staging Armed Forces Day in Stirling at the same time as the Bannockburn Live event.
As well as Bannockburn Live and Armed Forces Day, Stirling will also host Pipefest 700 the following weekend.
This will see pipe bands, clans and highland dancers taking part in a march from the gates of Stirling Castle. The march will be led by the Atholl Highlanders, Scotland’s only private army.
A spokeswoman for VisitScotland said taking control of promotion of the event would allow them to better coordinate three major events planned for that week in Stirling.
She said: “The National Trust are still involved and we are still working with Unique Events. We are hoping to release details of the event this week.
“The reason is so we can look at everything in detail and plan accordingly.”