NEWS
The duo told NME they were sharing their story "on behalf of all musicians who have been treated poorly within the live industry"
Wings Of Desire members and married couple James Taylor and Chloe Little had been scheduled to perform at Valley Fest last Friday, July 31. Instead, they returned home without taking the stage and compared the situation to “going to an airport, through security and waiting three hours for a non-existent flight”.
Through an extensive social media statement, the pair explained that they had been hired in February to appear on the festival’s Yard Stage. They travelled to the event with their 11 month old baby and eventually located the “infamous not-on-the-site-map stage”, where they discovered a “PowerPoint presentation about property development” taking place.
“The curator of the stage confirms he hadn’t booked us,” they wrote, “and the line-up had been in place for months”. The duo said they walked around the grounds while receiving no response to calls made to the organisers. They described what followed as: “Back to the car, pack up the stuff, nappy change on the back seat, more tears, drive 2 hours home.”
Valley Fest’s website promoted this year’s event as a “programme crafted with care across every stage”, adding: “Every booking, every collaboration, [and] every experience has been chosen with intention.”
Wings Of Desire explained that they publicised the incident as “a lovely example of how the music industry treats artists”. Little later discussed the experience with the BBC and provided additional details.
“We didn’t end up playing our set,” she told them. “That’s never happened to us before. We’re used to no dressing room, but there was nowhere to go with the baby, and that added to the stress.”
Responding to the account, Valley Fest founder Luke Hasell said he was “really sorry to hear about Wings Of Desire’s experience”. He explained that organisers had decided before the event to combine the Yard Stage with another venue and move its scheduled performers elsewhere across the weekend.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it appears there was a breakdown in communication around Wings Of Desire’s performance, which meant they weren’t given the information they needed ahead of arriving on site.
“We’ll be reaching out to the band’s management to apologise, better understand their experience and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Wings Of Desire later posted another message on Instagram, saying: “We have of course heard nothing from them and have not been compensated. We do not appreciate being gaslit into being told it was a miscommunication. We have all the receipts.”
The pair expressed a similar position in comments given to NME today, August 4, stating: “We are sharing this story on behalf of all musicians who have been treated poorly within the live industry.
“Quite often it is considered a bad look to kick up a fuss, however we felt it necessary after turning up to a festival with our baby and being tossed around and then completely ghosted. We have yet to hear anything from Valley Fest.”
NME contacted Valley Fest to request a response.
