Nicole Moudaber issues statement after she was unable to perform at Movement Festival due to conflict with closing DJ

After her Movement Festival set was canceled due to a post-weather-delay issue, Nicole Moudaber has told fans that “no one is to blame.”

Movement Festival in Detroit this past weekend hit a snag when severe storms on Sunday forced the grounds to be evacuated for about 3.5 hours. The second day of the festival did continue eventually, but not without some controversy. Lebanese-British techno staple Nicole Moudaber didn’t end up playing her set, and posted on X on Monday to tell fans what happened.

In her post, Moudaber wrote that she was called to play a set at 10 PM after the weather delay, but she ran into a conflict with another DJ. She wrote that “my table was ready to be plugged in but the dj that was supposed to play after me didn’t want to move his set up to accommodate me.” Because of this, she didn’t play her set and “there was complete silence for a whole hour while people were waiting for the music to start again.”

Moudaber did not mention the DJ’s name in her post, though she did use a he/him pronoun. British-Canadian DJ Richie Hawtin played the slot in question at the Movement Stage on Sunday night, debuting his new DEX EFX XOX show, so it seems the situation may have involved him.

After her initial tweet about the “shocking” turn of events, Moudaber has posted on X again on Wednesday to clear things up. She wrote that she “talked with everyone involved” and “can now see that no one is to blame for what happened,” apart from the weather. She went on to describe the “chaos” that came after the severe weather delay and admitted that “the set up for the person playing after me was complicated and I can appreciate why they needed to keep it intact for their own set.”

Moudaber ended her post by showing appreciation for the Movement Festival team for doing “everything possible to accommodate me” and recognizing the amount of “stress” that the situation entailed for everyone. She wrote that she has “nothing but love for this festival and for the city of Detroit” and that she hopes to play in the city again “ASAP,” hopefully on a sunnier day.

Movement Festival continued as scheduled for its final day on Monday, with performances from Chris Lake, Seth Troxler, Gorgon City, Honey Dijon, and Fatboy Slim.

Featured Image: Facebook / Nicole Moudaber

Gus Johnson

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, I’ve always had a passion for writing and was introduced to the EDM scene in 2017. Since then, I’ve attended countless shows and several major festivals including Tomorrowland, EDC Las Vegas, Decadence CO, Hard Summer, and Shambhala. Some of my favorite artists are Seven Lions, Zeds Dead, NGHTMRE, Trivecta, and Jason Ross.

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