An Angus brass band has vowed to continue playing, despite being priced out of holding open-air concerts in its home county.
Forfar Instrumental Band has blamed an increase in paperwork by Angus Council for its decision to pull out of five annual summertime concerts in Reid Park, Forfar, and Den Park, Kirriemuir.
The local authority asked the band to pay for £5million of insurance to protect members of the audience from injury during the outdoor shows.
It would also have had to carry out a risk assessment of the parks where it has played for the past eight years.
The musicians would have had to enter into a contract with the council accepting responsibility for the whole park on the entire day of the performance, as opposed to the bandstand area which they would use for an hour.
And instead of paying a standard £100, the local authority was asking the band to apply for a performance grant.
Band secretary Bruce Dorward, of John Street, Forfar, has been a coronet player for 52 years and said it was sad that audiences would have to suffer as a result of increased bureaucracy.
The 69-year-old said: “In the 1960s, we were encouraged by the then town council to perform in public each year and in fact we had a quota of shows to play as part of an agreement with it.
“Now we certainly aren’t being encouraged to play and have decided after considering the cost and the amount of red tape that is involved, that playing in the parks is not worth it.
“We are musicians, not lawyers and accountants, and we feel it has got to the point where it is unreasonable to expect us to carry out this paper exercise to play in the park.”
He added: “All we want to do is turn up at the bandstands and perform, but we will now be looking at events like church fetes or carnivals, where all of the paperwork is covered by those holding the event.”
A spokeswoman for the local authority confirmed it had asked the band to take responsibility for additional measures this year.
“We contacted the band a year ago explaining that as part of our overall budget review we were unable to continue to support the band's costs of staging performances in our public parks,” she added.