United Kingdom-based married singer-songwriter duo Wings of Desire recently shared their experience being gaslit by a music festival. After making arrangements and traveling to the festival grounds with their instruments, gear, and 11-week-old baby, the couple found out the stage they were booked for didn’t even exist.
Did the organizers reach out to explain the situation? Were they able to reach anyone to figure out what happened? Have they been contacted privately since then with an explanation? According to the couple’s Instagram post, the answers are no, no, and yet another no. One can’t help but think of the canceled Salt Lake City festival that completely erased its online presence on August 4.
James Taylor and Chloe Little spoke with NME in addition to posting the experience on social media. For Taylor and Little, they’re sharing “on behalf of all musicians who have been treated poorly within the live industry.”
To start at the beginning, in February 2026, Wings of Desire was booked for Valley Fest in Bristol. They were scheduled to play Yard Stage on July 31. When the time came, they packed up their gear and their baby and drove several hours to the festival grounds.
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After arriving at Valley Fest, it was clear that “no one knows where we are meant to go,” as the duo described. Taylor and Little wandered the festival site searching for Yard Stage with their baby and their gear in tow. But no one had any answers, or flat-out turned them away.
“The number of the production contact we have keeps going to a Giff Gaff voicemail,” they said. Finally they managed to find the stage, but it didn’t seem to be part of the music festival anymore. What they found going on instead was “a PowerPoint presentation about property development.”
They added, “The curator of the stage confirms he hadn’t booked us and the lineup had been in place for months.” Taylor and Little figured they might get a call from someone with the festival at that point, so they waited around a bit longer. But the call never came. They ended up packing everything back up and driving the two hours home. No performance, no contact, and no explanation.
“This weekend had the same dopamine hit of going to an airport, through security and waiting 3 hours for a non existent flight,” they said. “Just a lovely example of how the music industry treats artists.”
“We Do Not Appreciate Being Gaslit”
Valley Fest founder Luke Haskell released a statement after Taylor and Little’s story spread. The original lineup poster for the festival includes Yard Stage, listing Wings of Desire along with nine other artists. But according to Haskell, the stage was repurposed at the last minute, and the acts rescheduled. All except Wings of Desire, it seems.
“Ahead of the festival, we made the decision to merge The Yard Stage with another venue, with artists due to perform there being reprogrammed across the weekend,” Haskell said in the statement, per the BBC.
“Unfortunately, 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,” he continued.
“We’ll be reaching out to the band’s management to apologise, better understand their experience and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he concluded.
But Wings of Desire responded to the public statement, claiming that they still haven’t heard anything. “We have of course heard nothing from them and have not been compensated,” they wrote on Instagram. They added, “We do not appreciate being gaslit into being told it was a miscommunication. We have all the receipts.”
Photo by Amber Little/PRESS
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