WILEY’S management team has apologised after the rapper failed to attend a booking at the Brunel Rooms on Saturday.
Hundreds of revellers had packed out the Swindon town centre club in order to see the number-one selling artist – but he failed to appear.
The MOBO winner’s team contacted the Adver and said problems with a flight back from Canada meant that he could not perform that night.
He has offered to return to make amends but the Brunel Rooms, who were not notified at any stage that Wiley would not be coming, have said they will only have him if he does the show for free.
John Woolf, part of Wiley’s management team, said: “Wiley had an issue with the airline on Friday so was not able to fly back from Canada for the show.
“He then thought he would be able to get a new flight on Saturday but sadly they where all sold out.
“I was in the air at the time and did not receive this info until very recently.
“We are truly sorry about this and as you will see from his Tweets he was at the airport and trying to come back for this show. Let’s do a show or something to make up for people who were let down.”
When it became clear Wiley would not be appearing the disappointed clubbers, some of whom had travelled from London, were entertained by other DJs who were booked to play.
The Brunel Rooms has given refunds to everyone who had paid and apologised on the night and subsequently on Facebook.
The club had paid thousands of pounds up front to bring the chart topping act to the town after he performed at the County Ground during the Big Summer Session concerts in July.
Although the booking company have promised to refund every penny, the club management say they will still be left out of pocket.
Helene Simpkins, a club director, said: “We don’t accept the reason he has given us. We were not told any of this beforehand.
“We would not be prepared to pay any money for him because I don’t think people would trust him to turn up. I don’t think it will happen but we will only want him if he is prepared to play for free.
“Despite the refund we will still make a loss. We had paid for a lot of promotion like banners and flyers and had teams pushing the event all over the place – in London, Bristol, Reading and Oxford.
“We now want to draw a line under the issue and look forward to our next event.”
The next big events at the Brunel Rooms will be DJ EZ and the Artful Dodger on November 15 followed by Rudimental on November 29.
Tickets for these nights can be bought at www.skiddle.com.
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