LetsGetFr.ee promised a star-studded lineup curated by and for people of color in one of the most diverse venues in the country.
The incomprehensibly named festival was supposed to kick off with an opening gala at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on August 19. Over the next two days, notable artists like Missy Elliott, Jhene Aiko, Ozuna, El Alfa, Anderson .Paak and Kali Uchis were set to hit the stage in New York. Dubbing itself a “purpose-driven music experience” and a “Conscious Carnival,” the festival, the brainchild of Afropunk founder Matthew Morgan, his partner Jocelyn Cooper, and creative agency Anomaly,tried to reinforce its socially conscious credentials by furthering a mission to “close the equity gap” in the entertainment industry and achieve a “diversified workforce at all levels of the industry by 2030.” It’s unclear how a weekend of wristbands and portable toilets was supposed to do that, as is the abrupt cancellation of the festival that has now left hundreds of ticket holders scrambling for refunds unlikely to come until mid-September.
On Friday, organizers canceled the entire performance schedule with less than a month to go before showtime. They blamed inflation, of all things, along with a host of other vague hiccups, including “new security regulations that were recently implemented would have forced us to heavily alter your experience to a smaller, watered-down, inauthentic version.” (Festival organizers did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation did not respond to questions about recent safety rule changes.)
Unique Norton doesn’t buy your excuse.
“His reasons didn’t make any sense,” he tells The Daily Beast. “Honestly, he didn’t make any sense.”
The 23-year-old waitress and aspiring fashion designer found out about the show from her boyfriend, who saw a post about it on Instagram. The couple was supposed to go to Bonnaroo last September, but that festival was also suddenly canceled after campsites flooded. They were drawn to LetsGetFr.ee because of the stacked lineup, the seemingly calmer atmosphere of an “indie festival,” and the low price of around $79 for a general admission pass.
“We didn’t want our first music festival to be full of raves and mosh pits,” he says.
They got their tickets in March. Norton was especially excited for .Paak and Uchis. They booked train tickets from Tampa, Florida, along with a five-day Airbnb stay in Brooklyn for themselves and their two friends. The stage was set for an unforgettable weekend until Friday, when her boyfriend alerted her to the festival’s Instagram post announcing the cancellation. Comments had been disabled, so angry customers, including Norton, flooded the comment sections on other posts demanding their refunds and criticizing the organizers for their lack of preparation.
The entire fiasco drew comparisons to the Infamous Fyre Festival—no sad, open cheese sandwiches.
“We were literally going to sit on a train all day to go to New York for this festival and they canceled it,” says Norton. “We are already set for refunds. That was a unique situation. The way they handled it was very unprofessional.”
Looking back, Norton and others who were planning a fun weekend in New York to cap off the summer say there were signs that LetsGetFr.ee was in trouble. For one thing, it’s notoriously difficult to get a new festival off the ground, with some saying their favorite artists barely promoted the event on social media. On top of that, a head-scratching ticket tier system It was frustrating for customers.
“If you look at their Instagram page, they try to explain everything because it was really confusing,” says Sean Cruz, an occupational therapist from Queens who was excited to see his favorite artists in his own backyard.
LetsGetFr.ee had a lineup that matched her own taste in music, which leans toward jazz and neo-soul. He also likes Flushing Meadows Corona Park as a place to celebrate.
“It means a lot to me,” he says. “It’s a place I’ve been to a lot as a kid.”
At first, Cruz says, the festival advertised general admission tickets along with “party passes” that promised access to specific performances. Then came a sea change, with the organizers announcing that the GA fee was now all-inclusive. Some attendees, including Cruz and Norton, upgraded their tickets to VIP out of the blue.
“In hindsight, it sounds really fishy. I’m not a fan now.”
“To me, I was like, ‘That’s a little wacko,’” says Cruz, who specifically wanted General Assembly tickets so he could watch the show with the crowd. “I’m really not a big person to stand on the sidelines, to see an artist from an angle while he’s performing.”
He never got the money back from the special passes.
“In hindsight, it sounds really fishy. Now I’m not a fan,” Cruz said.
It’s not clear what really happened behind the scenes, but what it is Of course, a festival that has built up so much ill will since the jump may not survive. Organizers say refunds will be completed on September 15. Refund requests are due to ticket sellers DICE or TIXR by August 31, though the festival has promised to honor this year’s passes at next year’s festival. Unfortunately, it could be difficult to convince people to return to an event that was dead the first time.
“A lot of people think it’s a scam, honestly,” says Norton. “Personally, I feel like they just didn’t sell enough tickets and just quickly pulled out.”