A One Direction tribute band, billed as ‘simply the best tribute act to the biggest group on the planet’ were forced to pull out of a gig after selling just 44 tickets.

Maximum 1D were booked to play at the Sinden Theatre last Friday but failed to draw in the legions of admirers enjoyed by the real group – and the trickle of fans who bought tickets would have only filled a small fraction of the 231-seat venue.

Tickets were on sale at £10 for adults and £7.50 for children, with a family ticket priced at £24.

Juliet Mander, bookings manager of Homewood School theatre, said that the cancellation of the heavily-promoted show was disappointing. She said: “We thought that tickets would sell really well for Maximum 1D and what has happened is a waste for everybody.”

She added: “The band’s management paid us to come to the theatre and it was their decision to pull out. They decided to call a halt on Monday and would have faced big losses if they had gone ahead.

“They sent us lots of flyers and we even had a banner advertising the group outside Matalan but unfortunately that got stolen.”

Lookalikes Liam, Henry, Connor, Daniel and Vince from Essex who make up Maximum 1D, have had a run of disappointing shows, playing last month in Babbacombe, Devon, where they only sold 120 tickets at the town’s 600-seater venue.

Andy Cowan, director of Actz, the band’s management team said that the recent departure of Zayn Malik from the One Direction line-up may have damaged its appeal with a knock-on effect for the tribute act.

He said: “We had to pull out of the show as it was difficult to get enough interest. It could be bad timing because of the whole Zayn thing, or maybe One Direction has had its day.”

Mr Cowan added: “Ticket sales were very disappointing and we could have waited to see if there was a last minute rush to buy them, but we would have faced loses of more than £700 if we had gone ahead on the numbers we had.”

Last year Actz brought the highly successful Country Superstars Experience to the Sinden Theatre, featuring top Dolly Parton tribute act Sarah Jayne from Singleton, which filled the venue.