Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zarin Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing good?
Speaker 2: Me too?
Speaker 3: I'm doing really good.
Speaker 4: Me too.
Speaker 2: That makes two of us.
Speaker 3: Oh glad for us.
Speaker 2: It's happy, it's fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's done.
Speaker 2: You know what's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you asked me too. I got a
Speaker 3: question for you. If you were a telephone scam artist,
Speaker 3: who would be probably the worst target for you to pick?
Speaker 5: Hmmm?
Speaker 2: Probably you because you never answer your phone.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. Yeah, no, But okay, who's the
Speaker 3: second worst target you could.
Speaker 2: Pickh an FBI agent?
Speaker 3: How about the former chief of the FBI and also
Speaker 3: former boss of the CIA. Oh right, that'd be bad.
Speaker 2: That's very bad.
Speaker 3: So there was this guy, Kaneil Thomas, twenty nine years
Speaker 3: old from Jamaica, and in twenty fourteen, he got on
Speaker 3: a call and he's like, let me go scam these
Speaker 3: old people. And so he calls up this old couple,
Speaker 3: and the old couple happened to be former CIA by
Speaker 3: and former FBI chief William Webster Noyes. So he identifies
Speaker 3: them himself as David Morgan, which is a lie, and
Speaker 3: he says he's the head of Mega Millions lottery, and
Speaker 3: that Webster had won fifteen and a half million dollars
Speaker 3: and a new car, a twenty fourteen Mercedes Benz. So
Speaker 3: he had no idea that who he was targeting was
Speaker 3: actually the former director of the FBI and this and
Speaker 3: then later the CIA under Jimmy Carter and later Ronald Reagan. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and Webster was like now in his nineties, he told
Speaker 3: Lester Holt from the NBC Nightly News. At the time,
Speaker 3: it seemed to me that something wasn't quite right. This
Speaker 3: was pretty obvious to me that there was something fishy
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: It's like, I'd never play the lottery. That's number one.
Speaker 3: And then this guy, the scammer, tells him, you can
Speaker 3: win this Mega millions or whatever, but you have to
Speaker 3: pay fifty thousand dollars to cover the taxes on the price.
Speaker 3: And so then he's like, this sounds a little hanky
Speaker 3: to me. And so his wife, she said it terrified
Speaker 3: me because he then starts threatening them, and he says,
Speaker 3: he tells the couple he's been spying on them and
Speaker 3: if they don't pay, he's gonna does she put it.
Speaker 3: He told me that what the sniper's bullets would do
Speaker 3: to my head and the blood go down on my
Speaker 3: white house. He's like threatening the wife of that. Yes,
Speaker 3: he's just a phone scammer. So he got busted when
Speaker 3: he landed a JFK International and unaware that he is
Speaker 3: a wanted man because the FBI had been looking for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So if you're a phone scammer, do a
Speaker 3: little research and make sure you're not calling the former
Speaker 3: head of the CIA.
Speaker 2: Imagine you're just a regular like civilian, you're and you
Speaker 2: get that kind of call and you're not particularly tech savvy.
Speaker 2: He's talking about a sniper's bullet. Yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 2: that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I thought you enjoy that.
Speaker 2: He want to know what else is ridiculous? Junkie jubileese,
Speaker 2: flopping fetes, pooped parties. Yeah, yeah, sure, this is ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, hes and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 2: percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Damn right, do.
Speaker 2: You remember when I told you all about the fire festival?
Speaker 2: Fy I forget It's good times right right to the
Speaker 2: episode not the fire festival itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thankfully.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that the episode?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the jaw rule of it all, those terrible
Speaker 3: sandwiches of it all.
Speaker 2: It was your second favorite part of the story.
Speaker 3: The people who like fled and tried to fight to
Speaker 3: get housing on the island. Yes, that was I could
Speaker 3: imagine that.
Speaker 2: That was really good.
Speaker 3: And like the four wheelers, like them, like going around
Speaker 3: the site and like, yeah, me and Jaw Ruler just
Speaker 3: like hanging out of four wheelers in the sand man.
Speaker 3: It was just tons of nonsense. Well what was your
Speaker 3: favorite part? Now? What was your second favorite part?
Speaker 2: My second favorite part, like you said, the sandwiches, I
Speaker 2: like the maybe I think that was my first the
Speaker 2: pictures of the sandwiches, prison food. The second favorite part,
Speaker 2: I think is jaw rules involvement.
Speaker 3: Yes, how do you deny the jaw rules? So good?
Speaker 2: It wasn't the first time and it wasn't the last
Speaker 2: that a festival went sideways. I have hand picked three
Speaker 2: other failed festivals for you today. Really yeah. Rude Dude
Speaker 2: Rose from Instagram suggested a couple of these. She's a
Speaker 2: font of ridiculousness general awesomeness, so hats off to her.
Speaker 2: For the hot tip. Thank you Rose that said I
Speaker 2: would like to start in a city I love.
Speaker 3: Is this rude dude Rose who sent me the pennies? Yes,
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, the very same hero friend of the show.
Speaker 3: I've enjoyed those so much. He sent them like with
Speaker 3: their own little seals, like they each had like a
Speaker 3: cardboard backing. It was amazing, incredible.
Speaker 2: Solid rude dude right there. So I'm going to start
Speaker 2: in a city that I love. I used to live there, Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 3: Oh you do love that? I do love God, I
Speaker 3: I can barely pronounce it. You love it, I do.
Speaker 2: So I'm eager to go back and visit. It's been
Speaker 2: too long.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we should do like a rude dude trip.
Speaker 2: We should do a live episode. There's a great art
Speaker 2: scene there, I mean, like Glasgow School of Art is
Speaker 2: like a serious powerhouse like many other former industrial cities,
Speaker 2: though there's a place for artists. They aren't priced out
Speaker 2: just yet, although it gets more and more expensive all
Speaker 2: the time, does it. But then they add to the
Speaker 2: character of the city, and then there's like the humor
Speaker 2: and the personality of the city. So you obviously can't
Speaker 2: paint the people of a place with too broad a brush.
Speaker 2: But the culture of Scotland and Glasgow in particular is
Speaker 2: terribly funny and sharp. There's amazing wordplay, playful insults, and
Speaker 2: at the same time, really there's all this warmth and camaraderie.
Speaker 3: Its kind of like a Philadelphia of Scotland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm just and even just Scotland writ large
Speaker 2: is kind of like this. There's the love the underdog.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is like that. I always say that
Speaker 2: Glasgow is the Oakland to Edinburgh's Cisco. Okay, there's gallows humor,
Speaker 2: like this dark, self depreciating wit. We saw it when
Speaker 2: the Tartan Army came to the States. Everyone fell in
Speaker 2: love with them.
Speaker 3: Aren't They also the ones who like shout stuff at
Speaker 3: you and you're wearing like a I don't know, like
Speaker 3: a funny hat or like I tried wearing.
Speaker 2: Well, there's that one Twitter famous Twitter threat of all
Speaker 2: the Irish insults trench coat and was like, oh how
Speaker 2: you doing, inspector gadget like they can take the wind
Speaker 2: out of But the Scots are the same similar. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they take the piss, as they say, sometimes self directed
Speaker 2: when something is deserving of mockery. They have like perfected
Speaker 2: the dog pile, you know, like riffing, like they say,
Speaker 2: you know them in the Irish so they can just
Speaker 2: unload hilarious insult after hilarious insult.
Speaker 3: They have great Is there like a Celtic sense of humor?
Speaker 2: I think so? Yeah, And there's great kind of random
Speaker 2: insult names like yeah absolute cabbage. It's just amazing. So
Speaker 2: it's in Glasgow that we begin today. I want to
Speaker 2: tell you all about something called Willy's Chocolate Experience chocolate
Speaker 2: also known as the Glasgow Wonka Disaster.
Speaker 3: Oh Willy Wonka.
Speaker 2: Wonka, Willy's Chocolate Experience, which by the way, was spelled
Speaker 2: Willy's Choclate like c h O c l ate Experience
Speaker 2: on the on the official.
Speaker 3: Website Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate. Is that for like legal reasons?
Speaker 2: No, it was this unlicensed, supposed immersive all ages event
Speaker 2: that was going to be at the box Hub warehouse
Speaker 2: in Glasgow February twenty twenty four. The whole thing was
Speaker 2: the creation of a guy named Billy Cool, Billy c
Speaker 2: o U L L Cool and his company House of Illuminati.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so right there, like.
Speaker 3: Edgy, Yeah, we were talking serious like Red.
Speaker 2: So it was clearly designed to ride the wave of
Speaker 2: the recent Wonka film at the.
Speaker 3: Time, Oh the Timothy Shall yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Tim Ota, but it had no affiliation with the roll
Speaker 2: Doll estate or the movies, and that brings up licensing
Speaker 2: issues off brand. Yeah. So to get around this, the
Speaker 2: event's chocolate heer was named Willie McDuff and he was
Speaker 2: assisted by green haired Walka Doodles. So the villain was
Speaker 2: called the Unknown and was an evil chocolate maker who
Speaker 2: lived in the factory walls.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, like one person, not like a spirit.
Speaker 2: It's just the Unknown. We don't know factory okay. So
Speaker 2: this is all supposed to go down on the weekend
Speaker 2: of February twenty fourth and twenty fifth in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: and the promotional materials went hard. They were supposed to
Speaker 2: be like a laborate sets inspired by roll Doll's story
Speaker 2: and treats scattered throughout like fun. Yes, and the ticket
Speaker 2: prices were up to like thirty five pounds of person.
Speaker 3: So it's supposed to be like Willie Wanka's chocolate factory.
Speaker 2: You walk in and that's exactly where we are. And
Speaker 2: as I said, it's immersive like you feel like you're there.
Speaker 2: And what made the marketing instantly notorious was that both
Speaker 2: the website and the ads were built from low quality
Speaker 2: AI generated images that were just riddled with like garbled
Speaker 2: pseudo words instead of catchy tunes car chie tons, instead
Speaker 2: of a paradise of sweet treats that said a pacea
Speaker 2: dice of sweet teats.
Speaker 3: So nobody looked at anything.
Speaker 2: No, and then some of the print cat gased it,
Speaker 2: cat gag caading, Yeah, exercis dre supposed to be, they
Speaker 2: don't know. So you know, there's a restaurant storefront next
Speaker 2: to my brothers bar. It's a burger joint that's going
Speaker 2: to go in there, and they have a sign in
Speaker 2: the window advertising it's a very AI poster, you know
Speaker 2: the look, and someone graffitied over the window your AI slop.
Speaker 2: And this cracked my brother up. And now every time
Speaker 2: I see AI R, that's all I think about. That's
Speaker 2: just the phrase in my head. So anyway, even before
Speaker 2: opening day of the Chalclate experience, a Reddit user who
Speaker 2: saw the Facebook ads flag the event as a likely scam,
Speaker 2: and they were amazed that people were buying tickets in
Speaker 2: the first place, like look at this AI slop. Rolling
Speaker 2: Stone later figured.
Speaker 3: It amilies right, rave community.
Speaker 2: Thirty five quid. Oh wow, so you know you got kids.
Speaker 3: It's racks up middle family minimum.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Rolling Stone figured that the House of Illuminati's websites
Speaker 2: and event copy they you know, they they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: it's an AI chat wrote the whole thing, and then
Speaker 2: as a result, a town in South Dakota no longer
Speaker 2: has water. Fun fact, so the organizer's background was like
Speaker 2: red Flag City. Cool had previously been involved with a
Speaker 2: charity that was forced in twenty twenty one to remove
Speaker 2: false advertising for a gala that it was throwing because
Speaker 2: they were claiming that this TV personality Gakwan was going
Speaker 2: to be making an appearance. He's this really interesting brit
Speaker 2: who does like fashion consulting, writes books, host TV shows,
Speaker 2: just a general personality. He had absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the gala, but they were putting his name all
Speaker 2: over the place images and they're like, no, okaypelled correctly, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it spelled correctly at least if the guy also cool.
Speaker 2: He also claimed a doctorate from a fake metaphysical university.
Speaker 3: He also claimed that if you attended the gala, you
Speaker 3: signed away body.
Speaker 2: Parts exactly twenty twenty three. He self published seventeen books,
Speaker 2: seventeen all of them AI generated all of them, and
Speaker 2: some of them were like pushing vaccine conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, yeah, great, God. So this guy Max, he
Speaker 3: hadn't read his book.
Speaker 2: No whatever, just whatever's hot in the moment. This guy
Speaker 2: Max Waterfield, he was operations manager maybe still is, of
Speaker 2: box Hub. The venue, he said, House of Illuminati, gave
Speaker 2: these really detailed plans starting in February for this big
Speaker 2: family friendly event. It sounded great on paper, sure, and
Speaker 2: so the venue rented the space but had no role
Speaker 2: in the production, like he keeps emphasizing, we had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with that, like whew, And.
Speaker 3: Charlotte has always good at front loading something.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And that brings us to opening day, February
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. So ticket holders they come in,
Speaker 2: they find this sparse scattering of props in a grungy warehousehouse. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were like a handful of dioramas with parade float
Speaker 2: style lollipops and candy canes like shake front yard Christmas decorations.
Speaker 2: The quote unquote factory was basically a glass chemistry set
Speaker 2: on a table. There was one table. There was a
Speaker 2: single bouncy castle, so you know the noise of that too.
Speaker 2: There were supposed to be rivers of lemonade, and they
Speaker 2: were actually half filled plastic cups of store bought lemonade
Speaker 2: on a table that was the river of lemonade.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even a continuous flow. It was just like, look,
Speaker 3: there's one and another cup and another, and I know.
Speaker 2: What you're thinking, like there had to be amazing chocolate,
Speaker 2: though right there was amazing. There was essentially no chocolate
Speaker 2: at the chocolate experience. Kids got a couple of jelly
Speaker 2: beans and a small drink at.
Speaker 3: The apples not packets.
Speaker 2: Individuals warm from the hand. One account noted that organizers
Speaker 2: had to rush out and buy a microwave because this
Speaker 2: small chocolate fountain that they brought didn't actually melt the chocolate.
Speaker 3: So they's had chunks of chocolate sitting and should be
Speaker 3: found clogged up like he just crumbled like Hershey's bars
Speaker 3: just on top of them.
Speaker 2: What would be a chocolate There was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a forty five minute The whole thing was gonna be
Speaker 2: like a forty five minute to hour long immersive experience,
Speaker 2: and then they came outside. They're like, it took us
Speaker 2: two minutes to walk through this thing. There's nothing to see,
Speaker 2: there's nothing to One person described it as quote absolute shambles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it seems like it's the most not
Speaker 3: only embarrassing but depressing thing. It could come and bring
Speaker 3: their children to.
Speaker 2: Well, and the actor's experience became a story in itself.
Speaker 3: This Oh my god, there's actors. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Comedian Paul Connell, he was hired to play the Wonka
Speaker 2: figure Willie McDuff. He said he got this last minute
Speaker 2: script that was just fifteen pages of AI generated gibberish
Speaker 2: that he was supposed to model.
Speaker 3: To memorize and to say at random times.
Speaker 2: And then he looked around he saw no chocolate fountain anywhere,
Speaker 2: which I feel like is how Travis Kelsey felt at
Speaker 2: his wedding reception. Where's where's the chocolate? Connle quit conna
Speaker 2: quit mid event along with some of the phony OUPLUMPA performers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, He's like, I'm out of here. So the events,
Speaker 2: like supposed dramatic climax, featured the unknown and this like
Speaker 2: mysterious malevolent force was played by Felicia Dawkins, a sixteen
Speaker 2: year old schoolgirl. I don't know. She popped out from
Speaker 2: behind a mirror in a silver mask to frighten children
Speaker 2: and then that was it. She's like okay, and so she,
Speaker 2: like Rolling Stone, published a piece called Justice for the Unknown.
Speaker 2: So by mid morning, kids are crying, parents are furious.
Speaker 2: Police Scotland get called and officers showed up after the
Speaker 2: event had been canceled because they just had to call
Speaker 2: it off. Yeah, but they said, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a civil matter. We can't recover your money from that.
Speaker 2: After they stopped laughing, the event manager Waterfield he said, like,
Speaker 2: families start showing up, you know, And there was immediately
Speaker 2: a problem right away. They're irritated. It was supposed to
Speaker 2: go all all weekend long.
Speaker 3: I have a big empty warehouse with like five tables
Speaker 3: with some jelly beans on them and cups of lemon.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to go all week long, all weekend long,
Speaker 2: but it got shut down that more than hours of Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then photos from the thing went viral. There's like
Speaker 2: the contrast between this lush Ai promotional art and then
Speaker 2: the barren warehouse.
Speaker 3: Oh god.
Speaker 2: And the most iconic image was the photo of actress
Speaker 2: Kirsty Patterson in a green wig and oompahloomp a costume.
Speaker 2: She's like the Mona Lisa of twenty twenty four. So
Speaker 2: let's take it in. We're gonna put the picture on
Speaker 2: Instagram otherwise google it. It's worth it. But here's my
Speaker 2: description of it, my takedown, my dogpile. We have a
Speaker 2: woman being paid allegedly to guard a table that answers
Speaker 2: the question what if a Victorian pharmacy and a middle
Speaker 2: school science fair had a custody battle over some jelly beans. Oh,
Speaker 2: and then the fog machine is doing the heaviest lifting
Speaker 2: of anyone on the payroll. It's working double shifts, trying
Speaker 2: to obscure the fact that the factory walls are garbage
Speaker 2: bags stapled.
Speaker 3: To a warehouse garbage bags.
Speaker 2: There's a strip of hazard tape in the corner that
Speaker 2: is a set dressing choice that says immersive and also forklift.
Speaker 2: And then there's her face, right, it's not this expression,
Speaker 2: it's her resignation letter. The thousand yard stare of someone
Speaker 2: who is just handed fifteen pages of AI gibberish the
Speaker 2: night before and realize the script the posters probably her
Speaker 2: contract all written by Grock.
Speaker 3: This is like probably one of her first acting gigs professionally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was very excited. I say I have a degree,
Speaker 2: Like it's so bummer, and then her white gloves say,
Speaker 2: I will be sanitizing this memory later. So she's like
Speaker 2: looking through everything. The best part is like she's the
Speaker 2: most professional thing in the frame. Like the set, the
Speaker 2: pacide of sweet Teats, you know, it's just diculous. So
Speaker 2: the organizer is like, there are technical issues. This was
Speaker 2: our problem. They're technical issues. Someone plug well and some
Speaker 2: of the attendees compared the set dressing to a meth lab.
Speaker 2: A Facebook group called House of Illuminati Scam gathered around
Speaker 2: like three thousand members within a few days. The event
Speaker 2: was globally dubbed a fire festival for kids.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: A House of Illuminatis posted that it had been let
Speaker 2: down to the last minute in many areas and like,
Speaker 2: in hindsight, they should have canceled that morning. Rather than
Speaker 2: pushing on cool, he did a bunch of personal statements.
Speaker 2: He told STV news that he was so sorry, blamed
Speaker 2: technical issues.
Speaker 3: Technical yeah.
Speaker 2: He later posted on Facebook that all eight hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty tickets would be refunded and with screenshots, offered his proof.
Speaker 2: He then, like March thirteenth, he posts again saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: some of you guys are still waiting for refunds. Some
Speaker 2: of you you know, received them. The actors not paid.
Speaker 2: They were supposed to get five hundred pounds apiece, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, the House of Illuminati went,
Speaker 2: event websites gone, and he.
Speaker 3: Said, like guest certificates to the next Illuminati event.
Speaker 2: Well, then everyone goes after him certificate interviews. He did
Speaker 2: an interview for Channel five documentary Wonka, the scandal that
Speaker 2: rocked Britain. He said he lost friends.
Speaker 3: And his partner and he was a romantic partner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his romantic partner. You've been cast as the face
Speaker 2: of all evil. Had received hundreds of messages, including ones
Speaker 2: telling him to end himself. The documentary itself got bad reviews.
Speaker 3: And so they well made.
Speaker 2: Guardian gave it two stars.
Speaker 5: Yeahmentary documentaries, oh god.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so the strangest legacy is like how kindly
Speaker 2: it treated the performers. So Felicia Dawkins, she gets invited
Speaker 2: to train and make guest appearances at the London Dungeon.
Speaker 3: And then so people in real communities reached out to them.
Speaker 2: You've got heart, like this spokesperson is like she has
Speaker 2: a natural talent for scaring people. Kirsty Patterson. She became
Speaker 2: a minor celebrity in she appeared at the unaffiliated Willie's
Speaker 2: Chocolate Experience, LA cocktail evening that was staged in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles by a bunch of artists. Okay, the props found
Speaker 2: in Afterlife backdrops were rescued from the garbage and auctioned
Speaker 2: on eBay by this Glasgow record shop, Monorail Music, and
Speaker 2: they raised two thousand pounds for Palestinian Aid. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: bright Spot, crappy event. Let's take a break and we
Speaker 2: come back. More festival failures. Zara from Elizabeth, I have
Speaker 2: a question for you.
Speaker 3: I love questions. I don't love answers.
Speaker 2: I love question questions. I hate answers love questions. Do
Speaker 2: you watch Bridgerton?
Speaker 3: Is that a show?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one with the regency period?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah No, No, me neither. For those unaware like
Speaker 2: I Bridgerton. Netflix period drama series first came out December
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. It's based on Julia Quinn's series of romance
Speaker 2: novels Ah and it's produced by Shondaland a Shonda Rhyme's
Speaker 2: production company. That's one of Netflix's biggest hits ever.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's very enjoyable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It follows the eight Bridgerton siblings, an aristocratic family in
Speaker 2: regency era London. It's like early eighteen hundreds as each
Speaker 2: of them navigates high society's marriage market or the ton
Speaker 2: in search of life.
Speaker 3: I've heard of this stuff. Now. None of this is
Speaker 3: my interests. Like, it's not a world I want to
Speaker 3: hang out in. So nothing against the show. It sounds fantastic,
Speaker 3: it's not for me. It's like Downton Abbey. I'm like, right,
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 2: It's just not for me. But you know what, God
Speaker 2: bless Each season centers on a different siblings romance. We
Speaker 2: got some serious names here. I'm talking Daphne Bridgerton, Colin
Speaker 2: and Penelope Featherington Lady Whistledown kidding, I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 2: So being named Diamond of the season is like the
Speaker 2: Queen's pick for the most promising debutante a.
Speaker 3: Royal watcher invented, you know what I mean? Like the
Speaker 3: people who you know who have like a Princess Diana Plate.
Speaker 2: And who have like strong opinions about Megan Markle. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: so you want to be named Diamond of the season.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: That's I want that. The Queen's like you're the most promising.
Speaker 3: It's it's like the coming out ball, the hottest tailor.
Speaker 2: What made Bridgerton distinctive is like it's this lush, escapist,
Speaker 2: fantasy version of the regency period.
Speaker 3: Oh it's not sexy, it's more like like charming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just like there's diverse casting in like aristocratic roles,
Speaker 2: extravagant pastel costumes, ball gowns. They do like string quartet
Speaker 2: covers of modern pop songs like Sophia. There are candlelight
Speaker 2: balls and then yeah there's steamy romance. There's the hubba
Speaker 2: hubbu oh is that apparently sounds fun from what I understand,
Speaker 2: Like consider your bodice ripped son. So that aesthetic like
Speaker 2: the gowns, the stream covers, the candlelight ballroom is exactly
Speaker 2: what drew fans to the Detroit Bridgerton themed ball, Yeah,
Speaker 2: or what I like to call regency dreams dollar store reality.
Speaker 2: So the Detroit Bridgerton themed ball, which is right there
Speaker 2: right no, I mean I love Detroit.
Speaker 3: I love exactly. I'm like, I feel Detroit has become
Speaker 3: like a punchline like Chicago. You hear it, You're like,
Speaker 3: oh no.
Speaker 2: It took place on the evening of September twenty second,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, at the Harmony Club in downtown Detroit,
Speaker 2: and it was organized by Uncle and me LLC. Also
Speaker 2: Uncle me LLC is another.
Speaker 3: Sounds like a company that puts up signs in the
Speaker 3: hood we buy homes could be And later.
Speaker 2: They later renamed themselves u M Event Management LLC. And
Speaker 2: the company is co owned by a woman, Chelsea Beard.
Speaker 2: So while the event, yeah, exactly and unk is not revealed.
Speaker 2: While the event like traded on this you know, popularity
Speaker 2: of Bridgerton, it was not a Netflix sponsored event, And
Speaker 2: that's a distinction that's very important because Netflix does its
Speaker 2: own touring Queen's Ball, a Bridgerton experience apparently, yeah get
Speaker 2: I know. So the marketing promised like the full fantasy, sophistication, grace,
Speaker 2: like historical charm. They're saying, dancing, live entertainment, exquisite refreshments,
Speaker 2: enchanting surprises. Can I bring a lap museum quality treats, museum. No,
Speaker 2: I don't know who said that. I have a friend
Speaker 2: who describes things that are that. She really likes this
Speaker 2: museum quality and phrase. So they said live music from
Speaker 2: a full orchestra, dance lessons, photo opportunities, a fashion show,
Speaker 2: a two thousand dollars cash prize for the best dress guest,
Speaker 2: and they're going to be called Diamond of the season,
Speaker 2: like a show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a big staff to pull this off.
Speaker 2: Tickets started at one hundred and fifty bucks and went
Speaker 2: up to one thousand. What Yeah, and there's like the
Speaker 2: top tier Duke and Duchess package, like they said there
Speaker 2: would be valet service, dinner, music, all. All of this
Speaker 2: is on their sparse two page website. So fans invested
Speaker 2: heavily beyond the tickets. Right, there's one attendee, Tamisha Bland.
Speaker 2: She spent five hundred dollars on tickets, plus another two
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty on this glittery blue strapless gown. Others
Speaker 2: were like, yeah, I spent three to four hundred dollars
Speaker 2: on tickets. Then the gowns, hair suits, it's like grown pops. Yeah, everything,
Speaker 2: and then if.
Speaker 3: You're going to step into your fantasy you want to
Speaker 3: show up with the right footwell.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. There were warning signs, so like uncle and
Speaker 2: me had run earlier Bridgerton themed events, warned there was
Speaker 2: one at the Tailor Conservatory and Botanical Gardens that left,
Speaker 2: you know, most people disappointed. And they threw a June
Speaker 2: tea party where guests reported there was no tea at
Speaker 2: all and that the mimosas and glassware ran out.
Speaker 3: And so they're going to keep trying, just keep trying.
Speaker 2: Keep on keeping on it. Yeah, so things were like
Speaker 2: unraveling at the front door. No one was working the
Speaker 2: front door. People came, No one's checking it. They're just
Speaker 2: strolling in. Yeah yeah, so okay, so Zarin close eye,
Speaker 2: I want should have pictured. You are a huge Bridgerton fan,
Speaker 2: like huge, You've read the books, You've seen every episode
Speaker 2: multiple times. You are a regular on the Bridgerton sub rendit.
Speaker 2: You've been to Queen's Ball, a Bridgerton experience. It was
Speaker 2: magical and you loved it. When you heard about the
Speaker 2: Detroit Bridgerton Theme Ball, you were excited. Your grandma stitched
Speaker 2: up an incredible gown for you to wear to the
Speaker 2: Queen's Ball. You felt like a princess. So you got
Speaker 2: your cousin to rent a tucks and go with you,
Speaker 2: and you've convinced him to do it once again. The
Speaker 2: world is rough right now, and you love escapism. You
Speaker 2: need escapism. You and your cousin drove an hour and
Speaker 2: a half to get to the Harmony Club, and it
Speaker 2: does not disappoint. It's across the street from the opera house,
Speaker 2: which seems fitting, and the building itself is stunning buff
Speaker 2: brick and stone, with curved corners and arched windows. It
Speaker 2: feels exactly like something from the TV show. Your cousin
Speaker 2: drops you off in front of the men to wait
Speaker 2: while he goes to park the car. Other guests of
Speaker 2: the ball arrive in all their finery. You greet each
Speaker 2: other with nods and occasional squeals of excitement. A city
Speaker 2: bus stops in traffic in front of the building and
Speaker 2: the driver opens up their door. She calls out to
Speaker 2: you that everyone looks so beautiful. You thank her. She
Speaker 2: asks if this is a kintanera. The light changes and
Speaker 2: she drives off before you can answer. You brush a
Speaker 2: tendril of hair from the side of your face and
Speaker 2: then straighten your opera lengths satin gloves. You scan the
Speaker 2: sidewalk for your cousin. Soon enough, he comes jogging up,
Speaker 2: apologizing for taking so long. You tell him not to
Speaker 2: be sorry. You're just thankfully he's with you, and it
Speaker 2: is so polite as to not make you hobble for
Speaker 2: blocks in these heels. The two of you enter the
Speaker 2: Harmony Club, ready for the night of your lives. You
Speaker 2: pull your tickets from your satin clutch, but there's no
Speaker 2: one there to take them. You look around, perplexed. Other
Speaker 2: guests arriving are just as confused. You shrug at each
Speaker 2: other and make your way into the entryway. It's a
Speaker 2: little sparse. If you're honest, expected luxurious delights, This looks
Speaker 2: more like someone ran to a Dollar General to get
Speaker 2: some quick decorations for a shotgun wedding. In the atrium,
Speaker 2: folks dressed in their regency air of finess, chat and laugh,
Speaker 2: a frison of excitement shimmering in the air. A lone
Speaker 2: violinist stands in the corner, playing a version of what
Speaker 2: you think might be Seline Dion's It's All Coming Back
Speaker 2: to Me, Or maybe it's another song you can't quite tell.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to be an.
Speaker 3: Orchestra in the ballroom.
Speaker 2: You stream to listen, but you can't hear them yet.
Speaker 2: They're probably warming up, just calming their nerves before they
Speaker 2: perform at such an important event. At least that's what
Speaker 2: you'd be doing at last. The doors to the ballroom open.
Speaker 2: Eight foot round tables with chairs ring the room. What
Speaker 2: appeared to be plastic plates and plastic utensils sit on
Speaker 2: the sparkling gold tablecloths. Bottles of water dot the tables.
Speaker 2: You and your cousin find a seat. You're handed plates
Speaker 2: of food from a frazzled server. You poke at the chicken,
Speaker 2: which does not seem fully cooked. Your cousin's snow the
Speaker 2: beans on his plate and declares they smell like fish.
Speaker 2: You both push your plates away. Others at the table
Speaker 2: do the same. On the other side of the room,
Speaker 2: guests take turns posing for photos in two velvet thrones,
Speaker 2: a piece of crushed velvet on the floor in front
Speaker 2: of them, hoping to look like a plush rug and failure.
Speaker 2: There is no orchestra, and you aren't sure how they'll
Speaker 2: fit in here. When they arrive, there's a pole in
Speaker 2: the middle of the area where they would be set up.
Speaker 2: If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was
Speaker 2: a stripper pole, but that would be ridiculous. A small
Speaker 2: sign with the words Tink the Ferry, stenciled in pink
Speaker 2: sparkles on it sits beside the pole's platform. You hear
Speaker 2: one of the songs from the Bridgerton's soundtrack began to
Speaker 2: play on the sound system. People in the crowd begin
Speaker 2: to clap and cheer. Something wonderful must be about to happen.
Speaker 2: Then a woman in a skimpy red bikini struts onto
Speaker 2: the floor and stands beside the pole. She looks at
Speaker 2: the crowd a little perplexed. The sharp strings of the
Speaker 2: Bridgerton song echo through the sparsely decorated room. Then she
Speaker 2: grabs onto the pole and begins spin around it. She
Speaker 2: then hoists herself up, flipping upside down and spinning around
Speaker 2: the pole, supported only by her legs. She is indeed
Speaker 2: a pole. Answer, this is just getting weirder and weirder.
Speaker 2: You look around at everyone in their regency finery, politely
Speaker 2: clapping and smiling, and this dancer in her bikini and
Speaker 2: long tight braid running down her back. This is not
Speaker 2: the ball You imagined it would be Oh my god, sar.
Speaker 2: They hired a pole answer for the bridges.
Speaker 3: To ball teens to step into family.
Speaker 2: She's she's one of the Knight's only sympathetic professionals. She's
Speaker 2: a woman from Oakland, California, who calls herself Tank the Fairy,
Speaker 2: And she said she was hired three hours before the
Speaker 2: event began, and she gave the organizers more thematically appropriate
Speaker 2: options because like she does like aerial sling work and
Speaker 2: like a hoop and hair suspension she'll hang from her hair,
Speaker 2: so like these kind of like a circus, yes, where
Speaker 2: you could see and and also she had all these
Speaker 2: different outfits. No, they chose the pole dancing and selected
Speaker 2: her outfit. They asked for the red bikini.
Speaker 3: Unk and me, I'm with your imagined bus driver. I
Speaker 3: was so rooting for these people to go in. I
Speaker 3: don't even know Bridgerton, but I know what they're looking for.
Speaker 3: I at least I have fun, yeah, And I want
Speaker 3: them to be able to have these moments of whimsy
Speaker 3: and fantasy and fun and like to get away and
Speaker 3: like to take their cousin or whatever, and like no,
Speaker 3: and you're taking that for granted.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so take right. They paid her eight hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for three sets that included two songs from the
Speaker 2: Bridgerton soundtrack and for the finale, Maroon Five's moves like Jagger.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not kidding you. They asked her to do
Speaker 2: character work between performances, and I'm not really sure what
Speaker 2: that means.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think she knew, she said. The organizers seemed
Speaker 2: super professional on the phone. She felt really bad for
Speaker 2: the Yeah, she really didn't know what she was going
Speaker 2: in to perform. Yeah, she said in interviews and in
Speaker 2: a Reddit Ask Me anything, that her goal as a
Speaker 2: performer is to just bring people happiness.
Speaker 3: Of course, so that's what most entertainers.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: None of the people the ball blamed her. They were
Speaker 2: just glad that she at least got paid. But no
Speaker 2: one could figure out why she was hired in the first.
Speaker 3: Place, nor could she. I'm just assuming it or anybody else.
Speaker 2: Noone even trade for an orchestra.
Speaker 3: No or even like thematically anywhere near what you'd think,
Speaker 3: like if you're going through like a list of like
Speaker 3: who can I quickly call and get them to come?
Speaker 3: Not going to come up with that I probably come
Speaker 3: up with like a Vegas magician before I come up
Speaker 3: with that exotic dancer.
Speaker 2: Exactly right. So within a day, the ball was a
Speaker 2: national story. One attendee, Rachel Eaton, she spent three hundred
Speaker 2: bucks and she shared photos of like guests and gowns
Speaker 2: slumped in chairs, scrolling on their phones out of boredom.
Speaker 2: Her posts went like hugely viral on Twitter. People love
Speaker 2: a debacle, good Morning America. Not there, I know exactly,
Speaker 2: Hollywood reporter or Salon, BuzzFeed, all these others suspects. They
Speaker 2: reported on it and then compared it to Fire Festival
Speaker 2: and Willie's chocolate experience in Glasgow.
Speaker 3: I'm sure t was all about it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So then attendees organized quickly this Facebook group called Bridgeton
Speaker 2: Ball Scam Detroit. They formed to coordinate a possible class
Speaker 2: action lawsuit. Good luck right. Several members said that they
Speaker 2: had filed fraud reports with the Detroit Police previous events. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One attendee said she filed a fraud report and disputed
Speaker 2: the charge with American Express.
Speaker 3: Good for the tickets?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Uncle and Me Productions released a statement to WXYZTV.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I've quoted them. A few times, Detroit's.
Speaker 2: Own apologizing that not everyone had the experience they hoped for,
Speaker 2: and they said the intention had been a magical evening.
Speaker 2: They accepted full responsibility for what they called organizational shortcomings,
Speaker 2: and they promised to review resolution options. And then Chelsea Beard,
Speaker 2: the co owner, she basically reposted the same thing on
Speaker 2: Instagram and then added that the problems stemmed from a
Speaker 2: last minute venue and date change and non refundable deposits
Speaker 2: from the original bookings that caused losses for the company.
Speaker 2: Harmony Club is like, we have nothing. They're just like
Speaker 2: box Hub in Glasgow. They're like, I have nothing to
Speaker 2: do with this. We're not affiliated. We just rent the
Speaker 2: space company's website. Yeah, they're vanished from the interwebs. So
Speaker 2: we have another failed festival in the books. Let's pause
Speaker 2: for some ads, and when we return, I have one
Speaker 2: more flop fiesta for you, Aaron. I want you to
Speaker 2: prepare yourself for the fire Festival of book Talk. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the A Million Lives book Festival.
Speaker 3: I've got family who are into book talk. I've gone
Speaker 3: to events like y'all West, These are like real big
Speaker 3: in the book talk.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, book Talk is basically for people the uninitiated.
Speaker 2: It's people talking about books on TikTok.
Speaker 3: Yah yah and really heavy in the ya.
Speaker 2: Yes, young adult, young adult. Yeah, they have their own
Speaker 2: ecosystem and trends and gossip and hierarchy.
Speaker 3: You want to get arcs, those are the advanced reader copies. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm all about this life.
Speaker 2: So the A Million Lives Book Festival was scheduled for
Speaker 2: May second and third, twenty twenty five, at the Baltimore
Speaker 2: Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland. It was organized through the
Speaker 2: company Archer Management, by an event planner and romance author
Speaker 2: who operated publicly under the pen name Grace Willows and
Speaker 2: then she had other kind of like pseudonyms, but that's
Speaker 2: how everyone knew her.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Vent was aimed at the romanticy community. So these are
Speaker 2: readers of romantic fantasy fiction who hang out on book talk.
Speaker 2: The marketing was super ambitious. There were promotional materials that
Speaker 2: promised a vendor hall with authors from like fantasy romance, mystery,
Speaker 2: dark romance, just like here whatever, yeah, other kins.
Speaker 3: That's like the fantasy creatures. Okay, you know, so you
Speaker 3: get them in their romances too. Oh so like unicorns, Yeah, centaurs, unicorns.
Speaker 2: That kind of okay, I'm learning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like, you know, like half human, half
Speaker 3: horse that kind of stuff, not like a unicorner got it,
Speaker 3: got it.
Speaker 2: So they're kind of like free, adjacent.
Speaker 3: Very. I didn't want to scare you.
Speaker 2: It's not for me, and that's okay. Yeah, that's OKAYI
Speaker 2: the interns or my therapist, it's not for me, and
Speaker 2: that's okay. God bless see. That's my mantra. Now, there
Speaker 2: was supposed to be panels, like a content creation room,
Speaker 2: so I'm imagining like you know, to make your own
Speaker 2: tiktoks and like a back a community building atmosphere for
Speaker 2: bookworms and book dragons is what they said, bookworms and
Speaker 2: book dragons alike. The published schedule sounds like it was
Speaker 2: written as part of a State Department project to develop
Speaker 2: more insidious torture techniques aimed at me and me alone.
Speaker 2: That's just my observation. But you know what, it's not
Speaker 2: for me, and that's okay. Specific to torture me, thanks
Speaker 2: a lot State Department. There was registration, which is fine
Speaker 2: and necessary, and then okay, and then it had like
Speaker 2: the vendor hall hours that's to be expected. And then
Speaker 2: they promised a cause play competition taking a deep breath. Done, well,
Speaker 2: we're ramping it up, like the the entire is turning
Speaker 2: up the big whatever. This is for me, Elizabeth. Some
Speaker 2: things are not for you, and that's a There was
Speaker 2: going to be a scheduled performance by the Bookish Song Collective.
Speaker 3: Is that a real thing?
Speaker 2: Be strong? Then you can do this, yeah, the Bookish
Speaker 2: Song Collective. You don't have to go to this and
Speaker 2: not everything is for you. Let folks have their safe spaces. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm back.
Speaker 3: The whole time.
Speaker 2: The whole thing was set to culminate in a quote
Speaker 2: lavender romance ball that was going to run from seven
Speaker 2: to eleven pm.
Speaker 3: Oh, like an actual ball, like dancing, Yeah, much like
Speaker 3: the Bridgerton Sure so.
Speaker 2: Ticket teers range from like forty dollars to two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars and the ball was like a formal,
Speaker 2: decorated fantasy gala. I'm sure that what is the other kid?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The oh yeah, and so unlike this is really.
Speaker 3: What you want for the like if you're one of
Speaker 3: these crowd, it's like to be able to go and
Speaker 3: like step into your fan I have to say you
Speaker 3: get all dolled up. I mean you've been to like
Speaker 3: con events where people get dressed up, but I know
Speaker 3: what they are, Okay, they go like all out. I
Speaker 3: mean like some people have stuff like sword costs thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars. You know, it's like incredible. I really like
Speaker 3: it will defend all of these people, because I want
Speaker 3: people to be able to not like live in your
Speaker 3: imagination and some kind of like detrimental like I'm hiding
Speaker 3: from the world now, but if you're able to find
Speaker 3: a communities and can do the escapism and then you
Speaker 3: can spend the time to really doll yourself up in
Speaker 3: some costume. I love that. I'm like dude, and I
Speaker 3: love and to cheat people like that as a charlatan.
Speaker 2: And I love when things make people so happy. So
Speaker 2: as much as I bag on like furries, the ones
Speaker 2: I still can't stand, the ones who trash hotels and
Speaker 2: all that, that's different, but the ones where it just
Speaker 2: makes it if it gives them you so much joy to.
Speaker 3: Pin a tail on you some ears, Yeah, exactly, go
Speaker 3: out get a whole first suit, no nuts, you know.
Speaker 2: I yeah, So who am I? Who am I to say?
Speaker 2: Unlike the glassy Willy Wonka fellow. The organizer here had
Speaker 2: some credibility going in. She had this other yeah, a
Speaker 2: night in Tarysen Okay, okay in twenty twenty four, like
Speaker 2: that got a lot of positive reviews. So this was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this will be smooth sailing. So she recruits these authors, narrators,
Speaker 2: vendors personally, largely by word of mouth. Roughly one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty authors were listed as attending and independent authors
Speaker 2: paid to participate. So one author, Percy J. Paid one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars for a table in February of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, and then another two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: dollars for top tier sponsorship, advertised to include a free
Speaker 2: stay at the Hilton adjacent to the venue, social media promotion, merch,
Speaker 2: other perks, and when you think about potential direct sales
Speaker 2: and promotion and like profile lift, that's not a bad deal.
Speaker 5: I get a table in front of like you're ready fans,
Speaker 5: I mean the ideal. It's directed creator exactly. So like
Speaker 5: cracks appeared before anyone even arrived at Baltimom. About two
Speaker 5: weeks out, the organizer emailed authors saying that the Hilton
Speaker 5: representative wasn't responding, and that the group would instead be
Speaker 5: lodged across the street.
Speaker 2: At a day's in. Like that's a big down grade,
Speaker 2: and the rooms weren't camped, not.
Speaker 3: Quite the red roof, but it did not go Yeah,
Speaker 3: the days are better than a red roof.
Speaker 2: But still and like they thought they were getting comped rooms,
Speaker 2: they got to pay to stay at a day's in.
Speaker 3: Come on.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the organizer continued projecting like healthy sales, she said,
Speaker 2: ticket sales, Like in January twenty twenty five, she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're in the high four hundreds for tickets, and then April, oh,
Speaker 2: we're like in the low six hundreds. And like a
Speaker 2: bunch of attendees said they were told five hundred and
Speaker 2: six hundred tickets had been sold. One vendor said correspondence
Speaker 2: cited an expectation of twelve hundred attendees and that was
Speaker 2: the only reason they paid for a table. Of course,
Speaker 2: May second Friday, it started badly and it never recovered.
Speaker 2: So authors and vendors showed up at seven am for
Speaker 2: a load in and found no exterior signage. There was
Speaker 2: a single sign inside the building to say where it
Speaker 2: was what it was no event staff or volunteers. There
Speaker 2: as a seven am load.
Speaker 3: In like a day's in like multipurpose room.
Speaker 2: No, this is at the convention center. So it's like
Speaker 2: a portion of it. Yeah, but you know it's like that,
Speaker 2: it's not taking up the entire thing. So there's you know,
Speaker 2: maybe other stuff.
Speaker 3: I pushed out of the convention center.
Speaker 2: No, and so the people who were there, like they
Speaker 2: had to go find people who worked at the convention
Speaker 2: center to like show us where the rooms are, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: And then they found there had been like last minute
Speaker 2: floor plan changes that were given to them on a
Speaker 2: hand drawn map.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the original booth layout had to be rearranged on
Speaker 2: the spot to satisfy fire code. The whole thing is
Speaker 2: just a mess. The exhibit hall was cavernous and like
Speaker 2: pretty much empty of decorations and people. So the decor
Speaker 2: was basically like scattered pink flower pedals on tables about it.
Speaker 2: One attending author, Stephanie Combs described quote a ginormous dungeon
Speaker 2: of a room and like maybe fifty people in there.
Speaker 2: She brought eight boxes of books to sell and left
Speaker 2: with six still full panels. Not doing much better. There
Speaker 2: was no sound or audio visual equipment, no announcements. Some
Speaker 2: rooms didn't even have tables or chairs. One panel of
Speaker 2: audiobook narrators was held with panelists in the audience sitting
Speaker 2: on the floor of a vacant room, just one they
Speaker 2: had to find. There was a BIPOK panel and writing
Speaker 2: talking about writing diversity. They were scheduled on the VIP
Speaker 2: only day and that really limited the audience. Author Carmen
Speaker 2: Ciantel moderated one of the sessions. She posted photos of
Speaker 2: people just sitting on the floor or there were no
Speaker 2: printed or digital schedules, unmarked.
Speaker 3: Rooms, sure, no signage, nobody there to help anybody or
Speaker 3: where you are.
Speaker 2: Some people were just wandering by accident into unrelated events
Speaker 2: that were also at the convention center, including a cannabis festival.
Speaker 3: Oh god, you got just like dudes and women and
Speaker 3: like beanies coming in, like can I vapor in here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then you have all these like really sincere,
Speaker 2: precious people. People you want to talk about, dragons getting
Speaker 2: it on with each other and they're just yeah. The
Speaker 2: lavender ball on Saturday was like the defining image, very
Speaker 2: sparsely decorated space, bright overhead lights, and it looked more
Speaker 2: like a warehouse. It was very Glasgow, no DJ setup,
Speaker 2: just a tiny crowd. So there's a boom box in
Speaker 2: a corner. Yeah, they're saying that for both days it
Speaker 2: was probably one hundred people.
Speaker 3: This is worse than a bunch of what a high
Speaker 3: schoolers could put on it.
Speaker 2: Think you know what I mean? This is like yes,
Speaker 2: So by such, the festival was like a full blown
Speaker 2: social media phenomenon. So like the authors, Okay, here's where
Speaker 2: you messed up. Right, here are all these book talk folks.
Speaker 2: So they got it prepared to post tiktoks.
Speaker 3: To make the old.
Speaker 2: Tictac old people.
Speaker 3: They're going to be where they're gonna be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're posting real time videos that are going viral. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that author Percy j got over five million views, and
Speaker 2: everyone starts calling it the fire Festival of book Talk.
Speaker 3: And then her you know, the watergate of these things.
Speaker 2: Oh, it totally is so. And then again with Percy Jay.
Speaker 2: You know, she was pregnant with twins and she had
Speaker 2: flown from Texas, spent more than two thousand dollars on flights, fees, food,
Speaker 2: and she's just like, I was completely misled. All these
Speaker 2: others they had shipped stuff to Baltimore. They're thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars in debt because of that, and they want re
Speaker 2: fun because usually these events.
Speaker 3: I've been like I said, I've been to a bunch.
Speaker 3: They're really well run.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've been to a ton of festivals to
Speaker 2: just general ones like La Times Festival of Books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one's run back toory by like librarians and insider.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've been wonder if it's just like volunteers who are
Speaker 3: part of the community. They that goes to it and
Speaker 3: you cannot overlook any.
Speaker 2: Part of it exactly. So the organizer responded with a
Speaker 2: video apology because that's all we do now is make
Speaker 2: videos to the Archer Fantasy Events TikTok account.
Speaker 3: I like when people did like the notes app apologies,
Speaker 3: those are.
Speaker 2: The point better times. So she was like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know what, it was not set up to standards. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of problems with the setup. She offered
Speaker 2: immediate refunds to anyone who reached out, and then they
Speaker 2: said that you know, all payments are going to be
Speaker 2: processed by May thirty.
Speaker 3: First.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they did took full responsibility.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and said, we're canceling all future of that fund.
Speaker 3: By the way, these days for people to say I
Speaker 3: take more responsibility, I heartily apologize I messed up.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 2: I do think that everyone was probably refunded just because
Speaker 2: she went so hard on like clearing the decks, making
Speaker 2: sure this wasn't going to happen again. She maintained that
Speaker 2: she made no money on the event, and she personally
Speaker 2: put thousands of dollars into it, and so she said,
Speaker 2: you know, the offered compensation didn't cover everything like that
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars marketing sponsor. So people couldn't
Speaker 2: get one hundred percent hole on this.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: You know, was it actually like you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's just maybe it was just too big, like had
Speaker 2: be able to pull.
Speaker 3: It went from like we had one successful one too,
Speaker 3: what if we did the biggest event of the year.
Speaker 2: Well, and then it's also it's just like once one
Speaker 2: thing fails, then it's like it triggers a bunch of
Speaker 2: other stuff. Yeah, the convention center is like not our problem,
Speaker 2: of course. And then because there were also claims that
Speaker 2: the venue had lost swag backs and like food and
Speaker 2: stuff and They're like, no, we got no reports of
Speaker 2: missing boxes. You know this you do with us, We're
Speaker 2: the Baltimore Convention Center.
Speaker 3: We opened the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like two threads kind of stood out in
Speaker 2: the aftermath, Virtually everyone agreed that the authors and the
Speaker 2: vendors themselves were the one bright spot. And then Gus
Speaker 2: said that, like the exhibit hall was welcoming and engaging
Speaker 2: because of the creators, not the organizers, that they overcame
Speaker 2: this situation. Book talk rallied around the affected indie authors.
Speaker 2: Fundraising pages were created to help them become whole from
Speaker 2: the debt for flights, hotels. Yeah, and then a lot
Speaker 2: of them reported spikes and book sales driven by this
Speaker 2: like viral sympathy. So there's that. And then second, the
Speaker 2: disaster spawned a constructive sequel. Maryland vendors Amber and Matt
Speaker 2: Hodgson of Bookish Signs and more. They lost money at
Speaker 2: this thing. They announced that they were organizing their own
Speaker 2: festiv Romanticy in the Valley July twenty fifth, twenty twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: and it is explicitly designed to prevent a repeat and
Speaker 2: to support the authors and vendors burned by a million.
Speaker 3: Well that's coming up. Yeah, should I get us tickets?
Speaker 2: Yes, you go right ahead, and you tell me all
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Be strong done.
Speaker 2: So there's a bright spot in all of this. It's
Speaker 2: galvanized the community. Zaren. What's your takeaway? What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: And every one of these I was fighting because you know,
Speaker 3: I can have like an anger or a temper, and
Speaker 3: I was getting so mad for these, like because these
Speaker 3: people they just want to like almost every single time,
Speaker 3: they're like, they're these little communities. They just want to
Speaker 3: get together and do their thing, and they're not usually
Speaker 3: a cater to and attended to by mainstream cultures. So
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, we'd like to go and do our
Speaker 3: bridget infester, Like are our book romanticy thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And then they had they could take an advantage of.
Speaker 3: And I'm just over here seething like a big brother
Speaker 3: and somebody picked on my little sibling, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: what's their ad? We're going over the house. I'm going
Speaker 3: to take whatever I can from the living room. I mean, like,
Speaker 3: I'm getting furious. So I guess I'm a silly creature
Speaker 3: because as like a like a big brother, this is
Speaker 3: just how my head works. But like, I really hope
Speaker 3: that these folks, and I'm so glad by the way
Speaker 3: you told me about how they were able to get
Speaker 3: you know, get whole and then they were able to
Speaker 3: like support these authors and now they got a new festival.
Speaker 3: So I do like the resiliency of these kids and
Speaker 3: these young authors and these creators. I mean, so I'm like,
Speaker 3: I got all your back. Kids say yeah, this is amazing, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I you know, I am terribly jaded, and I am
Speaker 2: envious of these people because they're not jaded. The people
Speaker 2: who find such joy in these you know, like these
Speaker 2: kind of events and community in the community. You know,
Speaker 2: they're not they don't very trusting each other exactly, and
Speaker 2: there's a there's a really sweet sincerity to it. And
Speaker 2: so I was thinking when I was putting this all together,
Speaker 2: my mom sent me this video of a British train
Speaker 2: spotting kid who came over to the US to see
Speaker 2: Big Boy, so like huge, like the biggest engine as
Speaker 2: it's made for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
Speaker 2: the independence for the United States. It's making its way
Speaker 2: across the US, and he took a video of like
Speaker 2: when he's seeing it.
Speaker 3: He flew over here to see it, to see it
Speaker 3: on tricks and she was.
Speaker 2: Like I Her only comment when she forwarded to me
Speaker 2: is like, I wish this kind of joy on every person.
Speaker 2: And that's what like, this kid was so happy and
Speaker 2: so excited and it meant so much to him, and
Speaker 2: it's like, that's what you want. And these people were
Speaker 2: seeking out those moments of joy to be fully immersed,
Speaker 2: to become something totally different and of their own making.
Speaker 3: I also saw some of a friend of mine posted
Speaker 3: about that exact thing on Instagram and they said, this
Speaker 3: must have been so world changing for this kid because
Speaker 3: I've never ever seen him cuss before.
Speaker 2: Exactly when you put when you take someone that far
Speaker 2: outside of themselves, see, I'm all these people they wanted
Speaker 2: to dress up and have a fantasy and escape, and
Speaker 2: this world is so worth escaping these days. So it's like,
Speaker 2: if you can find that and like you're saying, having
Speaker 2: a community and have these people take advantage of it,
Speaker 2: or just through incompetence, it falls upon.
Speaker 3: Either one as Charlotteans or as incompetence who don't take
Speaker 3: for like, take for granted what it will mean for
Speaker 3: how many people and what it takes to do and
Speaker 3: pull off something right exactly.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad that we had a couple of bright spots.
Speaker 3: In that totally. I'm glad the community are so and
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 2: Everyone has like something that gives them that kind of joy.
Speaker 2: We all need to have like one or two things
Speaker 2: at the minimum that just you can fully immerse yourself
Speaker 2: in and it gives you complete joy. So that said,
Speaker 2: I think I would like to talk back day.
Speaker 3: Oh oh my god, I.
Speaker 6: Want hey's Aaron and Elizabeth. I just finished your episode
Speaker 6: on pigeon racing and theft. I actually work for my
Speaker 6: local humane society, and you'd be surprised how many of
Speaker 6: these pigeons are champions. In fact, they're exhausted. I know
Speaker 6: this because the residents bring us these pigeons after they
Speaker 6: find them in the shade or they wander into the garage.
Speaker 2: Just simply not wanting to finish the race.
Speaker 6: Then we have to call their owner. I personally think
Speaker 6: that is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I love that first of all, you do the lord's
Speaker 2: work and thank you for that, like you're amazing is this?
Speaker 3: But Beatrice, I found your pigeons.
Speaker 2: Don't have agency in this, like you know you got
Speaker 2: to society for thank you, thank you for rescuing the
Speaker 2: pigeons in the shade. Well at least they also, I
Speaker 2: guess they do have the agency to be like I'm
Speaker 2: not going to.
Speaker 3: I ain't no more flat flat for this.
Speaker 2: Ah. That's it for today. You can find us online
Speaker 2: at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: on Blue Sky on ins Graham. You can email us
Speaker 2: at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and please please
Speaker 2: please leave a talkback on the free iHeart app reach out.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by aspiring event promoter Dave Cousten. Our
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Assistant is knock off VERUK Assault Terry Maldonado. Pong
Speaker 2: research is by Undercover umplumpa Marissa Brown. The theme song
Speaker 2: is by members of the Bridgerton Chamber Ensemble Thomas Lee
Speaker 2: and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five
Speaker 2: hundred producer Dave Cousten's wardrobe by Mister Guy of Beverly Hills,
Speaker 2: guest haarn makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
Speaker 2: are determined. Poll dancer Ben Boleen and Lonely book panelist Noel.
Speaker 4: Brown reds QUI Say It one More Times?
Speaker 1: QUI Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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