Chris Lake and his fellow DJ/producer Fisher have voiced their disappointment after severe weather forced the cancellation of their highly-anticipated back-to-back closing set on the main stage during the first night of Ultra Music Festival in Miami.
In a post on social media the morning after, Lake expressed being “completely disheartened” that the duo was unable to deliver their show after months of preparation.
“We’d both worked for months in preparation for this show and were so excited about having the responsibility to close the main stage on the Friday,” Lake wrote. “As two guys who love, love, LOVE our genre and style of music, we were proud to have a chance to show that house music had a seat at the table amongst the biggest headline artists in the world of electronic music.”
Their set, being billed as Chris Lake b2b Fisher (Under Construction), was one of the many high-profile performances canceled on Friday night after dangerous thunderstorms rolled through downtown Miami. Organizers were forced to evacuate Bayfront Park and shut down the festival for safety.
While headliner Tiësto was able to play, Chris Lake and Fisher were unable to take the stage at all before the venue was cleared out.
“Most of all we are upset that we weren’t able to provide this experience for you all,” Lake continued in his message to fans. “We don’t play many shows together, but when we do it, we want it to be as special as possible.”
DJ Afrojack, who was able to perform earlier on Friday evening before the storms hit, offered to give up his scheduled set time over the next two days to allow either Hardwell or the Chris Lake b2b Fisher group to make up their missed performance.
The house music stars ended their statement by saying they hope Ultra will give them an opportunity to “run this back next year“ so they can finally deliver the unique back-to-back performance they had envisioned.
Several other big-name DJs also had their sets cut short or outright canceled on Friday night’s opening night of the three-day festival due to the inclement weather.
As of Saturday morning, organizers were working to reopen and reset the Ultra grounds at Bayfront Park for the remainder of the weekend after assessing any damage from the storms. More scheduling updates are expected throughout the day on Saturday.
Alright, it’s the morning after the night before and we’ve woken up completely disheartened. We’d both worked for months in preparation for this show and were so excited about having the responsibility to close the main stage on the Friday.
As two guys who love, love, LOVE…
— Chris Lake (@chrislake) March 23, 2024
