An opera has lost publicity and sales worth up to £18,000 because a ticket agency confused the music event with a tennis tournament.

Puccini's Turandot is due to be performed by Opera International at The Brighton Centre on Friday, November 23.

However, booking agency Ticketmaster touted the event on its web site and phone sales hotline as an international tennis tournament.

The agency even got the wrong year, as The Samsung Open, won by Britain's Tim Henman, was in fact on the same date last year.

Ticketmaster continued to advertise the tennis tournament until last week.

Callers claimed they were told the opera had been cancelled because it clashed with the non-existent 2001 tournament.

Opera International began to wonder why sales for one of its usually popular shows were so slow.

The error was finally discovered when an unhappy fan contacted Opera International asking why Turandot was no longer being performed in Brighton.

Ellen Kent, the show's producer, said: "We were livid when we found out.

"It has been a monumental cock- up."

The company estimated £10,000 worth of advertising for the show had been wasted.

The saga also led to a 20 per cent drop in ticket sales compared with similar shows at the Brighton Centre, two weeks before the night of the performance.

A total of 1,600 tickets have so far been sold for the show at the venue, which has a capacity of 4,000 for some events.

Ms Kent said the company had been offered "substantial financial packages".

The Brighton Centre spoke to Ticketmaster after being alerted by Opera International.

A spokesman for Ticketmaster said: "The confusion over the sale of tickets for Turandot occurred as a result of human error.

"The mistake was rectified as soon as Ticketmaster became aware of it.

"We would like to apologise to anyone who may have experienced inconvenience as a result."

Two years ago, there was concern from concert fans and regular attenders of events at the Brighton Centre when Ticketmaster took on the bookings for shows from the council, charging £2 commission on most bookings.