If the internet has taught us anything, it’s that planning large-scale events is hard. From the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience to the Bridgerton-themed ball featuring a pole-dancing “fairy,” there’s no shortage of viral flop events where guests were promised a night of immersive themed entertainment and instead arrived at a Hampton Inn conference room filled with 150 folding chairs and two bags of Stacy’s pita chips. And now, a new event has joined the canon: A Million Lives Book Festival, a romantasy con held in Baltimore last weekend.

A Million Lives was marketed as a convention for authors of romantasy, an extremely popular genre on BookTok. Organized by Archer Management, which according to its website is a company that provides social-media strategy to authors and hosts “events to help build the bookish community,” the convention was planned by Grace Willows, a West Virginia–based author who describes herself on Facebook as an “Arc Reader, event planner, and indie author supporter.” It was advertised as “the perfect event to make more bookish friends,” featuring “a vendor hall, panels, a content creation room, fandom cosplay meet ups, a cosplay competition and a ball,” with ticket prices ranging from $50 to $250 for fantasy authors who wanted to hobnob with fans and sell books.

According to TikTokers in attendance, however, the event was anything but fantastical. In videos posted over the weekend, many authors claimed that, though event organizers had promised 500 to 1,000 attendees, the convention was sparsely populated — a huge disappointment, given that authors typically have to pay for their own tables to sell books at conventions and rely heavily on sales from these events. “I barely made enough to cover my fucking parking for two days,” author Kait Disney-Leugers said in a TikTok, adding that A Million Lives “felt like the Fyre Fest of book festivals.” One author alleged she had been told that her hotel room would be comped, only for Willows to contact her shortly before the event asking her to pay for her own room at a different hotel. (A post on Archer Management’s Instagram states that the company will reimburse any attendees who request a refund by May 31.)

In a series of TikTok videos, author Perci Jay described the event as “absolute chaos” and said there was no signage advertising where it was located. Amenities that were advertised on the event website, like a “content-creation room,” were apparently nowhere in sight. The room where the “ball” was held appeared to have been sparsely decorated with “nary a streamer or a banner” or even a DJ in sight. One viral video posted by author Stephanie Combs shows several women in lavish gowns excitedly skipping to the ball, only to cut to a group of people milling about a dismal-looking conference room.

Combs told the Cut that as a first-time author, she was “over the moon” to receive an invitation to A Million Lives after she applied to sign at a table there last April. “Book events are a fun way to meet new readers, and I thought it would be a great introduction to the events scene,” she says. Combs says she had been told the event had sold 500 to 600 tickets and that she was shocked when only about 30 people showed up on the first day. The “Lavender Romantasy Ball” was also not as advertised, Combs says: Instead of a DJ, there was a security guard playing music out of a small portable speaker, and “the décor was silk Dollar Store rose petals scattered in a line along the tables.”

In a video posted to TikTok, Willows, who did not immediately reply to a request for comment, apologized to A Million Lives attendees, promising to refund anyone who asks for their money back. “I do understand that the ball tonight was not up to standards. There were a lot of issues getting set up, and it was not set up well,” she said in the video. Commenters, however, were unimpressed. “Looks like she put about as much effort into this apology as she did the event,” reads the top comment.

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