ORGANISERS of a pop music festival have defended their headline act's image after a school deemed the outfits were "inappropriate".

Barrow's Ultimate Pop Festival is set to feature performances from Vengaboys, S Club, Five and Kevin Simm, at Craven Park on Sunday August 26 following the success of the inaugural event last year.

The event was created by husband-and-wife entertainer team Denis and Beth Horan who are offering free tickets to various schools in the area including Sir John Barrow School in Ulverston.

Festival organisers say they called the school to make an offer of 200 tickets for children and handed teachers the event leaflet and a letter explaining when the festival was about.

Promotions manager Jason Houghton said he was later called by the school and asked to collect them as they were "inappropriate for children".

"It's 2018 and there is nothing offensive nowadays with their image, they are a clean-cut bubble gum cheesey pop act who sing feel-good songs that everybody loves," Mr Horan said.

"Today's music and images are far more inappropriate and based on sex, drugs, swearing or smoking and children today all have tablets, phones or computers where all sorts of offensive or unsuitable images are viewed daily via various social media platforms.

"We just wanted all the children to have an equal chance to come and enjoy the day we are putting on for the local community. Sir John Barrow is a fabulous school and has a great reputation and is a school we are all proud to have in our area, we hope that the school may change its mind as we would love the children to be included in the day."

A member of staff at the school disputed the tickets were rejected and said it was only the leaflets which were deemed to be inappropriate.

"One of the leaflets wasn't really suitable for primary school children so we said we'll issue the tickets but not the leaflets," the staff member said.

"We said we would issue the tickets but not the leaflets but they just came and collected everything from us."