Romantasy ball blasted as epic scam over false promises, sparse turnout: Fyre Festival of BookTok
A fantasy romance novel convention quickly went from Velaris to very messy.Romantasy fans — the extremely popular book genre among millennials and Gen Z women that blends fantasy fiction with smutty romance tropes — were baffled when they arrived at the A Million Lives Book Festival in Baltimore on May 2 and 3.What was promoted as an immersive gathering of hundreds of book lovers, dozens of authors and publishers, and themed entertainment quickly devolved into what is being dubbed the “Fyre Festival of BookTok.”Organized by Archer Management, A Million Lives promised author panels, romantasy cosplay meet-ups, a costume contest, a content creation room, a vendor hall stocked with new releases and bookish items, and a glistening ball taken right off the pages of Sarah J.
Maas.Author and attendee Stephanie Combs mockingly shared a video of her and her friends strutting through the hotel lobby wearing floor-length ball gowns.
“When you’re going to a bookish fantasy-themed ball,” she wrote in a TikTok post before showing a sparsely populated convention hall with no decorations.“And this is what you get.”Tables at the event were shockingly empty, with some lazily thrown fake rose petals and books on them.
Guests dressed for a ball of epic proportions were sadly disappointed as they idled in the room, which didn’t even have the lights dimmed.“When you gotta laugh so you don’t cry,” Stephanie joked.
“A million lives or a million lies? I was an attending author…at least we looked fantastic.”Perci Jay, an author attending the event, showed off the “absolute chaos” of the ball, which only attendees who bought the most expensive ticket had access to.The affair cost $250 and had no food, with water and drinks for purchase at a cash bar.
The only music at the ball was from a small speaker a security guard had on him.“So yes, friends, that means the plan for this ball was for us to stand in the giant empty room, with no food, a cash bar ...