Bradford could be heading for its worst New Year's Eve in living memory.

That is the verdict of promoters, performers and licensees who say Millennium celebrations will be a massive flop.

Garth Cawood, entertainments manager for Pennington's Variety Club in Manningham Lane, Bradford, blames media hype and greed.

He says many acts have tried to charge up to seven times their usual Saturday night fee on December 31.

But that has backfired, along with high admission charges by some venue bosses out to make a killing, with many performers now finding themselves without a booking on the big night.

"In all my time as a theatrical agent I've never known a worse Christmas and New Year," said Mr Cawood.

"Forget the Millennium hype and bring back a normal New Year. I've never known so many acts free. Normally you can't a get a band for love nor money on the three Saturdays before Christmas or on New Year's Eve, but this year lots of them are kicking their heels."

Mr Cawood said acts which would usually charge £500 on a Saturday night might put up their rates to about £1,200 for New Year's Eve but were asking for up to £3,500 this year.

With bar staff demanding big bonuses and venues charging high admission prices, ticket sales for many events have been slow and some have been cancelled or scaled down.

Chris Wellham, editor of the Bradford Innscene magazine, which covers pubs and clubs in the district, said: "It does seem set for some sort of anti-climax.

"If acts are going to ask for silly money then they're not going to get work because most pubs and clubs have now realised that people won't pay silly money to get in.

"A few months ago people were talking about big prices to get in everywhere but a lot of places now are only charging small amounts to get in."

Carl Irwin, who works at Bingley and District Working Men's Club, said: "We will be open this year but we haven't booked an actual turn like we did last year, purely because we didn't want to inflate our prices. It does seem like a lot of people have tried to charge extra and it's backfired."

Bradford-based band The Gillettes almost found themselves without a gig on December 31 - even though they were originally booked 14 months ago for a lucrative two-day Millennium event in Cumbria.

Singer Craig said that contract fell through in August because the event was cancelled, although the band luckily found a replacement gig supporting John Rossall's Glam Rock Explosion at Pennington's instead.

He said the level of excitement about the Millennium had waned as the big day had got closer. "A couple of years ago the year 2000 still sounded really amazing but as you get nearer people have realised it's just going to be another normal day," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.