A memorial service for Michael Jackson is now likely to take place in Los Angeles, it emerged last night, after the family ruled out a public wake at the star’s Neverland ranch.

It is thought that the logistics of handling tens of thousands of mourners at the remote estate in rural Santa Barbara County, 130 miles from Los Angeles, proved too complicated. A permit for a burial at the site could also not be issued in time.

Reports of a lying-in-state for Jackson at Neverland surfaced on Tuesday as estate staff began preparations. Last night a spokesman for the Jackson family said that there were no plans for private or public services at the estate but that plans for a public memorial would be announced soon. These could take place at the 20,000-seat Staples Center or the bigger Los Angeles Coliseum, the main venue for the 1984 Olympic Games.

The inhabitants of Los Olivos, the nearest town to Neverland, breathed a sigh of relief and are clinging to the hope that strict local planning laws will prevent Neverland becoming a Jackson version of Graceland, the former home and today a memorial to Elvis Presley that still attracts more than 600,000 visitors each year.

Jackson was 29 and at the height of his popularity when he bought the 2,500-acre ranch, naming it after the mythical island of Peter Pan, where boys never grow up. He wrote some of his greatest hits there and turned it into a playground in which he hosted parties for hundreds of children, many seriously ill.

Jackson fled the ranch, and the country, after his acquittal in 2005 on charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy. The estate, which fell into disrepair, has been partly renovated in the past six months.

In Los Olivos yesterday a flag flew at half mast among the wine-tasting stores that promote the local vineyards, but locals are aghast at suggestions that the ranch could become a destination for Jackson pilgrims.

“It’s nuts,” said Heather Saarloos, at a wine-tasting room. “This place is just going to become crazy. The reason people come here is to get away — that is the charm of the valley.”

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president