LetsGetFr.ee promised a stellar line-up curated by and for people of color in one of the most diverse venues in the country.
The inexplicably 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 such as Missy Elliott, Jhene Aiko, Ozuna, El Alfa, Anderson .Paak and Kali. The Uchis were ready to hit the stage in New York. Billing itself as a “purpose-driven musical experience” and “Conscious Carnival,” the festival, the brainchild of Afropunk founder Matthew Morgan, his partner Jocelyn Cooper, and creative agency Anomaly, sought to reinforce its socially conscious credentials by promoting a mission to “close the capital 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 will fare, as well as the abrupt cancellation of the festival that has now left hundreds of ticket holders scrambling for refunds that are unlikely to arrive until mid of September
On Friday, organizers scrapped the entire slate of acts with less than a month to showtime. They blamed inflation, of all things, along with a number of other vague setbacks, including “new safety regulations that have recently been put in place would have required us to significantly modify your experience to a smaller, watered-down version and not authentic”. (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 the recent changes in safety rules.)
Unique Norton doesn’t buy his excuse.
“His reasons didn’t make any sense,” he tells The Daily Beast. “Honestly, it didn’t make sense.”
The 23-year-old server 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 abruptly canceled after the campgrounds flooded. They were drawn to LetsGetFr.ee by the stacked lineup, the seemingly more relaxed atmosphere of an “indie festival” and the low price of about $79 for general admission.
“We didn’t want our first music festival to be crazy with raves and mosh pits,” he says.
They took 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 them 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 of other publications demanding their refunds and criticizing the organizers for their lack of preparation.
The whole fiasco drew comparisons to the famous Fyre Festival, sans sad, open-faced 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 already asked for the refunds. It was a one-and-done situation. The way they handled it was so unprofessional.”
Looking back, Norton and others who planned a fun weekend in New York to end the summer say there were signs that LetsGetFr.ee was in trouble. For one thing, it’s notoriously difficult to launch a new festival, and some say their favorite artists barely promoted the event on social media. On top of that, a head-scratching ticket tier system proved frustrating for customers.
“If you look at their Instagram page, they’re trying to explain the crap out of it because it was so confusing,” offers Sean Cruz, an occupational therapist in Queens who was excited to see his favorite artists in his own backyard.
LetsGetFr.ee had a lineup that matched his own musical taste, which leans towards jazz and neo-soul. Also likes Flushing Meadows Corona Park as a place.
“It means a lot to me,” she says. “It’s a place I’ve been to a lot when I was a kid.”
At first, Cruz says the festival advertised general admission tickets along with “party passes” that promised access to specific performances. Then there was an about-face, with the organizers announcing that the GA rate is now all-inclusive. Some attendees, including Cruz and Norton, had their tickets upgraded to VIP out of nowhere.
In retrospect, it sounds very stilted. Now I’m not a fan.
“For me, I was like, ‘This is kind of crazy,'” says Cruz, who specifically wanted GA tickets so he could see the show with the audience. “I’m not a big band person — seeing an artist from from an angle while acting.”
He never returned the money for the special passes.
“In retrospect, it sounds really nasty. I’m not a fan now,” Cruz said.
It’s not clear what happened behind the scenes, but what is clear is that a festival that has built such ill will from the jump may not survive. Organizers say refunds will be completed by September 15. Refund requests must be made to ticket sellers DICE or TIXR by August 31, although the festival promised to honor this year’s passes to next year’s festival. Unfortunately, it might be hard to convince people to come back for an event that was dead on arrival the first time around.
“A lot of people think it’s a scam, honestly,” says Norton. “Personally, I think they didn’t sell enough tickets and they backtracked quickly.”
