It has come to light that a Derby girl was disappointed after waiting for 12 hours at a festival stage barrier for one of her favourite music artists, Liam Gallagher. She was removed by security minutes before he came on stage. The 9-year-old Audrina Hatton-Wright from Mackworth was attending Boardmasters festival in Cornwall and was excitedly waiting to see her idol Liam Gallagher via Derby Telegraph.
Mum Gemma Gould watched her daughter enjoy numerous other acts performed to huge crowds on Saturday (August 12) before being told hours later that children under 16 could not be there, reports Cornwall Live. Audrina, who is in remission from cancer and is also disabled, was at the festival with Gemma and her Partner Zack, 34.
The three were removed by security minutes before Gallagher came on stage, 9, then saw the night end in heartbreak as huge fan Audrina missed the entire final set of her favorite artist. Criticizing the security team, Gemma said: “They were so difficult and I didn’t understand why nothing was said before.
“We’ve been going to gigs for years with Audrina and she’s a very experienced festivalgoer and I can assure you she’s been to gigs much rowdier than Boardmasters. She spends half her life in hospital as an impatient [due to various conditions] and these gigs mean everything to her. It’s her little bit of happiness in between and it was ruined.”
Boardmasters said it took “decisive action” at the time describing the family’s location as the most pressurized point of the pit lane. It said they were taken to a less congested spot at the time, which Audrina’s parents refute saying it was much safer in their original location than in the middle of the crowd.
It has been noted that Gemma explained the family had been engaging with security all day, having been the second group of people at the front of the stage, and says it was never mentioned that children could not stay at the barrier despite them camping out there.
“When we got to Boardmasters there was only one other family there so we thought we might as well go for the barrier even though we had tickets for the accessibility platform and throughout the day it got busier and busier but it was fine.”
“Just as Liam was on the stage a supervisor said she’s got to go and minors weren’t allowed at the barrier but nobody said anything all day and we’d been there for 12 hours. He just said children aren’t allowed here and I said we weren’t moving because we’d been there for hours and she was absolutely fine.”
