BALTIMORE — When featured authors accepted invitations to the “Million Lives Book Festival” at the Baltimore Convention Center, they envisioned a magical weekend celebrating literature, readers, and community. What they experienced instead, according to multiple attendees and participants, was a deeply disorganized, disrespectful, and disheartening event that some described in a single word: travesty.
Kalista Neith, a featured author invited 18 months ago by the festival organizer, said she was initially "honored" to be included. The promise was alluring — a $1,000 appearance fee, a stay at the Hilton, and the rare opportunity to be spotlighted at a major literary event without paying to participate. But the reality, she said, “just kept getting worse.”
Four days before the event, authors were informed that the Hilton booking had fallen through and they were being moved to the Days Inn. While Kalista noted there’s “nothing wrong with the Days Inn,” it wasn’t attached to the convention center, creating logistical headaches — especially for her pregnant colleague who had to walk across the street carrying heavy gear.
From the start, coordination was lacking. “The convention center was locked when we got there,” Kalista said.
Inside the event, conditions continued to disappoint. A disorganized map meant authors had to find their own tables, destroying any pre-arranged plans for reader meetups. “We were all scattered — some of us literally against the wall.”
Basic accommodations like tablecloths and water were missing. Sarah Zane, an author who commuted from Boston, MA, said the expected 500 attendees never materialized. “We saw maybe 40 people that first day. No lanyards, no wristbands. You couldn’t tell who was a guest or just someone off the street,” she said.
The festival promised panels, cosplay opportunities, photo ops, a fantasy ball, and a DJ. Instead, attendees found empty spaces, minimal decoration, and what they sarcastically nicknamed "Steve" – a lone speaker that replaced the promised DJ.
The content creation room, which was supposed to provide backdrops and lighting for social media photos, was completely empty – not even a chair was provided.
"I've been to my nieces and nephews' 6th grade prom kind of stuff that was better than this. It was a concrete floor. It was the same space that we had for the events, so it was like just this big warehouse looking thing, and the lights were all the way on, there was no decor, there's no entryway, there was no lighting. There was nothing, there was no balloons, there was nothing," said Zane.
Panels were another sore point — particularly the BIPOC panel, which was held during a restricted “VIP-only” period in a room smaller than a kindergarten classroom, with no microphones or signage, according to authors. “And who’s moderating the BIPOC panel? A white man reading questions off his phone from the back of the room,” Kalista said. “He asked us the same question seventeen times — how do you avoid stereotypes when writing POC characters?”
Videos under the festival's hashtag have flooded TikTok with hundreds of posts capturing the disbelief and disappointment.
"I just think that the person who hosted it this time dropped the ball and instead of canceling it, they just continued on and now it has become pretty much a Fyre book festival. Like it's bad," said Carter.
Some attendees traveled from as far as Spain to attend the event, which had been selling tickets at 50% off shortly before opening.
"They were selling tickets at 50% off for this event, so I started having a feeling that maybe something wasn't going as expected, and from what I've heard from the authors, they had been promised a couple of 1000 people to attend, and that's not what they received either," said Hartlove.
Authors who were invited to participate faced their own set of problems. Kalista Neith flew in from Phoenix, Arizona, expecting her hotel to be covered by the event's organizer, Archer Fantasy Events.
"So she comes up, she's like, oh, I know this is unprofessional. So I was like, OK, yeah, and then she's like, I need you to pay for your hotel room," said Neith.
Another author, Sarah Zane, drove six hours from Boston and hauled boxes of books to the Baltimore Convention Center, only to sell just 16 copies.
"Kalista and I go to a lot of these, so we generally know what to expect, and this was a two-day event that was supposed to have 500 to 600 people, and the last time I did an event like that, I sold 110 books. At this event, I sold 16," said Zane.
While authors are tallying up thousands of dollars in losses, they say the real tragedy isn't what they lost—it's the bond with readers that never got a chance to flourish.
"There's a lot of book lovers who I think this was their first event, and I really don't want to discourage them from attending. There are a lot of great events out there," said Hartlove.
"I felt disrespected and I felt like the only business that mattered in this was Archer Management, who ran the event," said Zane.
WMAR reached out to Archer Fantasy Events to ask where things went off the plot—but as of now, there's been no response.
Organizers have promised refunds, but many attendees and authors say they're not holding their breath—and some are already preparing for legal action.
This story was reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
