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If the internet has taught us anything, it\u2019s that planning large-scale events is hard. From the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience<\/a> to the Bridgerton-themed ball featuring a pole-dancing \u201cfairy,\u201d <\/a>there\u2019s 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\u2019s pita chips. And now, a new event has joined the canon:\u00a0A Million Lives Book Festival, a romantasy con held in Baltimore last weekend.<\/p>\n A Million Lives was marketed<\/a> as a convention for authors of romantasy, an extremely popular genre on BookTok. Organized<\/a> by Archer Management, which according to its website is a company that provides social-media strategy to authors and hosts \u201cevents to help build the bookish community,\u201d the convention was planned by Grace Willows, a West Virginia\u2013based author who describes herself<\/a> on Facebook as an \u201cArc Reader, event planner, and indie author supporter.\u201d It was advertised as \u201cthe perfect event to make more bookish friends,\u201d featuring \u201ca vendor hall, panels, a content creation room, fandom cosplay meet ups, a cosplay competition and a ball,\u201d with ticket prices ranging from $50 to $250 for fantasy authors who wanted to hobnob with fans and sell books.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 500 to 1,000 attendees, the convention was sparsely populated \u2014 a huge disappointment, given that authors typically have to pay for their own tables to sell books at conventions and rely heavily on <\/strong>sales from these <\/strong>events.\u00a0\u201cI barely made enough to cover my fucking parking for two days,\u201d author Kait Disney-Leugers said<\/a> in a TikTok, adding that A Million Lives \u201cfelt like the Fyre Fest of book festivals.\u201d 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<\/a> on Archer Management\u2019s Instagram states that the company will reimburse any attendees who request a refund by May 31.)<\/p>\n In a series of TikTok videos, author Perci Jay described<\/a>\u00a0the event as \u201cabsolute chaos\u201d and said there was no signage advertising where it was located. Amenities that were\u00a0advertised on the event website, like a \u201ccontent-creation room,\u201d were apparently nowhere in sight. The room where the \u201cball\u201d was held appeared to have been sparsely decorated with \u201cnary a streamer or a banner\u201d or even a DJ in sight. One viral video<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Combs told the Cut that as a first-time author, she was \u201cover the moon\u201d to receive an invitation to A Million Lives after she applied to sign at a table there last April. \u201cBook events are a fun way to meet new readers, and I thought it would be a great introduction to the events scene,\u201d 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 \u201cLavender Romantasy Ball\u201d 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 \u201cthe d\u00e9cor was silk Dollar Store rose petals scattered in a line along the tables.\u201d<\/p>\n