An attempt to beef up Ireland's declining sperm stocks by offering festival tickets in exchange for a donation has been suspended after a flood of applications.

A private fertility clinic in Ireland launched a website, www.spermfortickets.com, which promised tickets to any of 127 European music festivals - a promotion aimed squarely at young males.

But a statement on the website today said: "The purpose of the spermfortickets.com website was to test market interest through a pilot scheme. Applications for donation packs have far exceeded expectations.

"Our clients are calling a halt to the invitation to apply for packs, and will review the results of the scheme to decide on how to proceed.

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"All submissions sent to the website are fully protected under Irish privacy regulations, and will not be released to ANY third party.

"If the clinic decides to proceed with the mail system after examining the results of the pilot scheme, all people who applied for donation packs will be contacted."

The offer appeared to many to be too good to be true from the outset, with no contact details for the campaign organisers, just a form to apply for information packs.

To encourage respondents, the form also asked for their choice of European music festival. It directed applicants to the European music festival section of globalfests.com, which lists 127 festivals.

Many of those listed are already sold out, while others, such as Glastonbury, require registration, or, in the case of free BBC events, are allocated on a lottery basis.

Despite the potential letdown for music fans, the campaign seems to have honourable intentions - spermfortickets.com states that sperm donations in the Republic of Ireland fertility clinics are down by 40% in the past four years, while new technology means they can accepted donations from around the world.

The campaign co-ordinator, David Clayton, explained that their clients, a private fertility clinic in Ireland, can accept donations from around Europe due to a fast courier service and the development of a new patented container that can keep sperm alive for three days.

"We were approached by the clinic to market a pilot scheme for the postal donation service," explains Mr Clayton. "They wanted to aim at a younger target market of 20 – 25 year olds. Together we decided to focus on festival-goers as they are in the right age bracket and spend a lot of time on the internet."

Interested browsers were invited to apply for a donation pack, which includes "information about the clinic, contracts and legal information (including privacy policies to cover client confidentiality)."

The website had been overwhelmed by requests for donation information packs since its soft launch two weeks ago. High interest resulted in David Clayton being interviewed on Irish radio station RTE2. It also received coverage on NME.com, the New Musical Express website.

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