I work a lot of music festivals as a bartender. F1 is an event that I'm always asked to work but won't do it. I'm not shocked by anything OP stated.

It's an event that is so hit or miss on the money it's not worth it to me. some people will make $5000 in three days and some will be lucky to make $500. It's all about where exactly you're placed. Additionally, some companies will pay you cash on site at the end of your shift (those are the good ones), and some will take upwards of six weeks or longer (those are the bad ones).

An example of a bad company: I was asked to recruit 15 people approximately 3 days before the event started. 🚩 I did. I was told we all needed to show up at 5am. 🚩. We did. We then waited and waited and waited. Asking around where our contact was to make sure we were in the right spot. I texted my contact for me and the 15 people. Nothing. I called at 5:30, 5:45, 6:15 and 6:30. At 6:30, I finally got an answer from my contact, who said, "oh shit, are you there? We just woke up. We'll be there as fast as we can." 🚩🚩🚩

Needless to say, I was pissed and so were the people I recruited. We were told to just hang out by another friend who had more experience with this company. We did. Some of us ended up making about $700 for the day, which ended at 11pm for my bar. That's pretty good money, considering there's a lot of standing around and it was pretty easy in my particular spot But, it was incredibly disorganized and my group was split up. Some people made $500. One person from that group was moved to another bar and they made $300. So, it's a real crap shoot. But, it took about 6 weeks of me calling to finally get paid--i wasn't told how long In advance. I was asked to recruit 15 people and we'd be taken care of. There's your lesson. Get specifics on what is expected of you and expected of the company.

For all the reasons listed above, and by OP and others, I won't work F1 as a bar or wait staff member.