A Million Lives Book Festival in Baltimore did not have a fairy-tale ending — or beginning, or middle.
The event held on May 2 and 3 at the Baltimore Convention Center, focusing on authors of romance fantasy, is drawing comparisons to the infamous Fyre Festival for not fulfilling any of the promises made by the organizer, Grace Willows, or her organization, Archer Events. Neither responded to a request for comment sent this week.
What was supposed to be a multiday fantasy festival that included booths, attractions, cosplay meetups and competition, and a ball, ended up joining the elite scamming company of the aforementioned Fyre Fest, as well as a well-known Willy Wonka event in Scotland and a Bridgerton ball in Detroit.
Some of these promises that Archer Events and Willow made were grand — like a panel of speakers — while some, like tablecloths, were not. The constant, however, is that none of these fantasy wishes came true. One attendee took to TikTok to complain, and has since gone viral, as has the event.
“The bar was on the floor, but it went to hell real fast,” said a romantic fantasy author named Perci Jay, who came to Baltimore from Texas for the event while pregnant with twins.
Jay went into detail in a series of videos on TikTok, the most popular of which has more than seven million views.
“By the end of Friday, we were all feeling gut-punched,” she said in a video. “We’re trying to figure out how to cover our table fees or ship our extra books home. Not only are we taking a loss on [books] not sold, we had a loss on shipping books back.”
This event was cheap in terms of delivery, but not in terms of what it asked of attendees. As Jay explained, she paid her $150 fee for an author’s table 18 months ago — indicating the organizers had more than enough time to do things like obtain decorations and hire a disc jockey for the event’s ball. Instead, attendees were greeted by empty rooms and a single Bluetooth speaker.
Jay added that she paid another $250 for the highest level of sponsorship and received none of the perks associated with that either.
“I thought, ‘It’s only $250; it’s not worth my peace,’” she said to explain why she didn’t raise issue with the lack of organization earlier. “Little did I know that peace was never an option.”
She added that she knew that trouble was afoot when she saw general admission ticket prices slashed by 40% just weeks before the event — which she said indicates the organizers were well aware they needed to conjure up some magic of their own in order to fill the event with attendees.
For those who simply see this as poor management and not fraud, Jay had something to say to that end, too.
“On the Wednesday before we all flew out, the featured authors [who’s Hilton rooms were supposed to be paid for] got an email saying, ‘Hey, my rep at the Hilton hasn’t been answering my phone calls or emails over the past week,’ and that she couldn’t confirm bookings,” Jay said. “She said she was instead moving the featured authors to the Day’s Inn across the street.”
At this point, it seems safe to assume that the blame lands squarely on Willows and company, and not a mysterious, anonymous rep at Hilton, or anyone else. In addition to that, the organizers claimed that badges they made for the event “broke” and that promised swag bags were “thrown away,” according to Jay.
Fyre Festival, which saw the organizer, Billy McFarland, serve prison time, has birthed a new category of scam in the social media era. Unfortunately, it appears the Baltimore book festival has solidly joined those ranks.
The event did not reflect poorly on all Marylanders, though. In fact, there was a silver lining to the disastrous weekend.
“The security at the convention center was a ten out of ten — they deserve all the praise,” Jay said in one of her videos.
In fact, one guard can be credited for the aforementioned Bluetooth speaker.
“He took pity on us, and brought [the speaker] from home just so we could have some music at this ball,” Jay said.
Jay said that she and other attendees and authors were told that their refunds would be processed in full by May 31. The festival was marketed to new and debuting authors specifically, and many of those in attendance were relying on foot traffic at the convention to get their names into the “romantasy” community.
“This wasn’t just a bad event; this was a financial disaster,” Jay said. “This ruined a lot of careers [that were] at their very beginning.”
Some on social media took to calling the festival “A Million Lies” instead. At this point, that sounds like it could be an understatement.
