Josh Baker and Chris Stussy's Parklife sets cancelled due to "overcrowding"
A new addition to this year's site, The Matinee Stage was closed by Parklife's safety team on Sunday evening to "remove the risk of any potential incidents"
Manchester's Parklife Festival was forced to cancel sets from Josh Baker and Chris Stussy this weekend, due to overcrowding at newly-added stage The Matinee.
According to the Manchester Evening News (MEN), the stage was closed shortly before Baker's set at 6:30PM on Sunday (June 15), with the festival issuing an altert via the Parklife App: “Upon advice of the PL safety team, the show on The Matinee Stage has been paused, we will update ASAP."
Videos shared via TikTok showed huge queues to get into the stage, with user evehughesspam sharing a clip of the crowd dwarfing The Matinee ahead of Baker's set with the caption: "It was hell no one could move but sad he got cancelled."
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Josh Baker, who had been set to play a homecoming set at Heaton Park, shared a statement via Instagram stories, writing: "Unfortunately I will not be performing at Parklife due to reason out of my control. I deeply apologise," he continues. "I can't really put into words what today was going to mean to me."
However the Heaton Park-based festival was then forced to close to stage for the rest of the evening, leading to the cancellation of Chris Stussy's three-hour set which was due to take over the stage from 8:PM until 11:PM.
Stussy also posted to his Instagram story, sharing that he was "gutted" that he was unable to perform and that he had "flew straight from Barcelona to play a 3 hour closing set but due to safety reasons and the stage being overcrowded, the organisation decided to shut the stage down as it may have caused unsafe situations for those who were there."
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"Despite being disappointed, safety comes first and we will make this right very soon," the Dutch DJ and producer added.
In a statement provided to Mixmag, Parklife said: "As a result of crowd movement at the Matinee Stage and on the advice of our safety team to remove the risk of any potential incidents, Parklife made the decision to close the stage for the remainder of the final day of the festival."
“Unfortunately it has been impossible to relocate Josh Baker's and Chris Stussy’s performances to a new stage, the statement continues. "Our teams worked quickly and diligently to address the situation and the safety of our festival attendees is always our utmost priority.”
According to MEN, a number of people waited outside the stage in the hopes it would re-open for Stussy's performance, but dispersed when the stage failed to open at 8:PM.
Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter