Festival hit by stage closure over crowd safety

One of the stages at a city's biggest music festival had to be closed on the final day due to health and safety fears.

People at Manchester's Parklife were moved from the Matinee stage as it was shut down at 18:30 BST on Sunday after advice from the festival's safety team "as a result of crowd movement", organisers said.

The Dutch DJ Chris Stussy said he was "really gutted" his set was cancelled but the stage had been closed "due to safety reasons and the stage being overcrowded".

Manchester DJ Josh Baker also "deeply" apologised to fans on social media as he was "unable to perform", saying it was due to reasons "outside of my control".

A Parklife spokesman 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.

"Our teams worked quickly and diligently to address the situation and the safety of our festival attendees is always our utmost priority."

About 80,000 fans turned up at Heaton Park on Saturday to see rapper 50 Cent and Rudimental perform.

Charli XCX headlined on the main stage on Sunday to close the festival.

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