What was promoted as a way for book lovers to connect with each other and their favorite authors went horribly wrong in Baltimore earlier this month. Here’s what happened.

First we had Fyre Festival version 2025, which has now been indefinitely postponed as its organizer seeks to sell what’s left of the brand, thus answering the question we asked in our last edition of MeetingMentor Online. While that may have been the most talked-about fiasco so far this year, not far behind is what was billed as a “fantasy ball” for romance and fantasy book lovers and authors attending the A Million Lives Book Festival at the Baltimore Convention Center on May 2-3.

According to a news report, the ball ended up being a bust. Attendees gussied up in the finery ended up doing more muttering than mingling. With no signage, badges or bling, the few who found the right space entered what one author in attendance called “a ginormous dungeon of a room” — a seriously under-decorated ballroom with just a few pink petals scattered on tabletops. Instead of the promised 500 to 600 attendees, less than 100 tickets were reported to have been sold, though official ticket sales numbers are not available.

The vendor hall was a big disappointment to the authors who shipped their books to sell at their tabletops, only to find few buyers and a big bill to ship their works back home. The promised “content creation room” was reported to be just an empty breakout room, and the few who showed up had to dance to tunes emanating from a tinny speaker playing tunes from someone’s phone.

The coup de gras may have been a lack of tables and chairs for some sessions, which meant some of the authors had to conduct panel sessions sitting on the floor, along with their attendees. Also missing: air conditioning and microphones. At least, unlike Fyre Festival 2025, the tickets were only $50 to $100, rather than the $1,400 to $1.1 million Fyre organizers were asking attendees to pay.

The fiasco went viral on social media, as fiascos tend to do, even though the event organizer was quick to apologize and offer full refunds. “I do understand that the ball tonight was not set up to standards,” a representative of the event planning company said on TikTok. “There were a lot of issues with getting set up and it was not set up well. I want to apologize.”

While some wanted to blame the convention center for everything from missing signage to AWOL vendor deliveries and swag bags, according to the venue, the event organizer did not make the venue aware there were any problems as the event unfolded.

In a show of solidarity and support, some attendees posted a page asking people for their support for the financial recovery of authors who “were left with financial debt due to flights, hotels, shipping their merchandise and table fees only to be misled by the turnout of the event.”

It’s unclear exactly how this all unfolded, but it is clearly a cautionary tale for any meeting or event organizer to take extreme care to nail down every detail, hold regular and up-front conversations with their venue, vendors, exhibitors and suppliers, and get out in front of communicating with attendees about any problems that may crop up.

In today’s social-media–heavy environment, even the slightest snafu can be amplified beyond a planner’s wildest nightmare. And nowadays, it likely could even make what may once have flown under the radar into a mainstream media news headline.