Steps hit back at Yorkshire Wildlife Park over 'disastrous' concert

Anger erupted after large sections of the crowd complained they were unable to hear the band as they performed hits like 5,6,7,8, Tragedy and many more in front of thousands of fans. Wildlife park bosses blamed ‘a localised problem’ for sound issues – and now the five-piece band have hit back and laid the blame for the concert squarely at the door of the organisers.

Posting on Instagram, Claire, Faye, H, Lisa and Lee wrote: “A note about Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday. We were pleased to see so many of your gorgeous faces at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday. We had such a brilliant time on stage and we are as disappointed and upset as many of you to learn that there were issues with the volume of the show in certain sections and that many of you were unable to hear clearly.

"Unlike our arena tours, we rely on festival organisers to provide adequate speakers, sound desk and video systems on summer shows and in this one case we were sadly let down. We also understand there was some confusion about our stage time but rest assured we did begin the show at the contracted time agreed with the promoter. We are so grateful for all your love and support and it’s gutting when we hear that anyone hasn’t had a great experience at our shows, so we can only apologise. Please direct any further queries to Yorkshire Wildlife Park who are aware of the issues.”

Bosses at the Branton visitor attraction had earlier apologised to fans unable to hear the show, attended by more than 10,000 people.

The spokesman said: "We are sorry. There was a localised problem in part of the bronze section when a sound deck had to be rebooted."

Asked about refunds, the spokesman said: "Any complaint will be dealt with one by one, on their merits."

Fans in the ‘silver’ section of the crowd also complained of not being able to hear and one said: “There was a sound issue from the start of the event. I was told there was an issue with the sound at a previous concert that the YWP held. They really have to look at all aspects of the night.

"There were issues concerning information as to how to get to the arena section as there was no one or any signs to say where to go. Also getting into the sections was badly managed as well as the exiting of the arena.

"To be honest it was a disaster from start to finish.”