The A Million Lives Book Festival in Baltimore, held May 2-3, promised a "magical experience" but left authors and attendees disappointed.
Sparse vendor halls, missing decorations, and a barely attended event left many feeling scammed.
Authors like Perci Jay, who paid $150 for the chance to sell books, were particularly upset after the promised crowd of 600-1200 dwindled to just 100-130.
Panels lacked moderators, goodie bags went missing, and a speaker replaced a DJ for the ball.
Organisers have issued an apology and promised refunds by May 31, but many attendees are demanding compensation for their losses.
Sparse vendor halls, missing decorations, and a barely attended event left many feeling scammed.
Authors like Perci Jay, who paid $150 for the chance to sell books, were particularly upset after the promised crowd of 600-1200 dwindled to just 100-130.
Panels lacked moderators, goodie bags went missing, and a speaker replaced a DJ for the ball.
Organisers have issued an apology and promised refunds by May 31, but many attendees are demanding compensation for their losses.
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FunTranscript
00:00oh yes everyone this was real this was a real fantasy ball that I just attended
00:09not even 12 hours ago hi I'm Percy Jay and I attended a million lives book
00:16festival in Baltimore it was even worse than what you're seeing because this
00:21story starts 18 months ago because that's when we all put our deposits down
00:26so I put down my hundred and fifty dollar table fee back in February of 2024 I am
00:33not from Baltimore Maryland I'm from Texas but I got in because a lot of my
00:37friends were going to because so many people were going that I wanted to see
00:41and hang out with I planned a lot of major life events around a million lives
00:45I'm currently pregnant with twins I planned my pregnancy around this event
00:50like a clown I scheduled my uncle-in-law's funeral around this event I
00:57even paid extra to sponsor this event so I was like 250 why not it's a good deal so
01:04I was supposed to get my logo on the website an author takeover day in the
01:08Facebook group an author focus day with several posts about me and my books on
01:13social media a medium window or floor decal where those were supposed to go I
01:18don't know and my logo on the tote bag I did not in fact get my author takeover
01:23day in the Facebook group there was not a single post about me or my books on
01:27Archer management socials it was slated at somewhere around a hundred and twenty
01:32those kind of numbers are huge but I had not seen any advertising on behalf of the
01:41management company featured authors got their rooms paid for free by Archer
01:47fantasy events allegedly and on the Wednesday before we all flew out the
01:54featured authors got an email saying hey my rep at the Hilton has not been
01:59answering my phone calls or emails over the past week past week why wasn't this
02:04situated over a month ago and said that she couldn't confirm bookings and so she
02:10was instead moving all the featured authors to the days in across the street the
02:16security at the convention center was 10 out of 10 they deserve all the praise
02:19I'm getting ahead of myself so this was the original author vendor narrator setup I
02:24was number two over here all my friends and other authors and vendors that I knew
02:28were also on the same row with me so I was so jazzed to be with my friends yeah but
02:33when we got into the convention center this was not the setup some of you who
02:37may have been to conventions before see this setup and go hold up I don't know
02:41that's gonna fly with fire code and guess what this wasn't gonna fly with fire code
02:45so this was all completely different instead of having two big rows and then a
02:49bunch of like other rows like this it was all just up and down horizontal which
02:54completely messed up everybody's table setup no one knew where they were going
02:57it was absolute chaos so the vendor hall opened at 10 a.m. and the attendees
03:01started rolling in but keep in mind this is Friday so this is a VIP only event the
03:07only the people who pay for either the cloud walker the dream walkers could come to this event
03:10event y'all there were maybe maybe 30 people the grand entrance was for this
03:18magical book festival this this is it the convention hall provided that sign we
03:27were told there's gonna be 500 tickets sold maybe the rest of them are the 50
03:31dollar general admission tickets so and so we're just gonna see this huge crowd on
03:37Saturday this is the decorations doubled so did the attendance we went from 40 to 80
03:43and like I said there was no way to actually count because we couldn't tell
03:47who was an attendee and who wasn't but there were other issues from day one that
03:50bled into day two like we had no water like not even a water bottle at our tables
03:54we were promised snacks there was no snacks this was the lavender romance ball that
03:59cost 250 American dollars in this economy to attend so here's the decor for the ball
04:07these rose petals weren't even silk they were styrofoam of the highest quality there
04:13was no food there was a small table with just desserts you paid 250 dollars for a
04:18ticket to access a cash bar for a ten dollars tiny little cup of wine yeah if
04:24you want to get like a tiny cup of Sprite it was gonna be five dollars bottle of water five dollars
04:28here he is everyone the infamous bluetooth speaker that provided all of
04:33our music for the ball but don't give credit to the creator for speaker Steve
04:37this lovely security guard right here took pity on us and brought speaker Steve
04:44from his home just so we could have some music at this ball and a lot of you have
04:50been tagging me in the apology video from the creator where she said that she's
04:54going to issue refunds for those who request it so this video was
04:58filmed at the ball itself about 30 minutes in I know you're thinking it's an
05:04apology video she's issuing refunds what's the issue she did not do this
05:07video out of the goodness of her heart my friend and fellow author Calista Neath had
05:12to go up to her during the ball and confront her about what an absolute mess this
05:19was and she demanded that the creator here make this video posted on socials and tag her in
05:27it go to this video you will see Calista Neath in the caption tagged because if she
05:34hadn't has said anything this video would have never happened but I had to watch
05:40these dejected and heartbroken first-time authors pack up boxes upon boxes of books
05:48that didn't sell that they don't know how they're going to get home some people
05:53flew in from out of state some people flew in from out of the country because
05:58they were told your readers are here and this is a good investment it's one thing to
06:03do an event and bite off more than you can chew but you need to accept that you
06:07hurt hundreds of people and merely offering refunds is not enough