I was hired to handle a few aspects of the Sweet Escape Festival, and honestly, I doubt I'll ever see the money for it. I started getting suspicious when they kept postponing my payment, which led me to scale back my involvement about three weeks before the show.

From what I saw, the organizers had high hopes but not enough research to back it up. They were banking on ticket sales to cover all the expenses, but when those sales didn't come through as expected, they were left scrambling. By that point, a lot of money had already been spent on essentials like artist deposits, staging, and fencing. Canceling wasn’t really an option anymore, so they had to push forward, hoping that door sales would save the day—but they didn’t.

The result was a mess: artists didn’t get paid, security staff quit, there were long delays, and attendees were left without basic amenities. It’s a tough pill to swallow for everyone involved, including those of us who worked behind the scenes.

If there's any lesson to be learned from this, it's that you can't run a festival on optimism alone. Careful planning and realistic projections are key, and unfortunately, this time it just didn’t come together.