Sorry if I havenât been amazing on comms of late, been on quite the rollercoaster of life and I wonât lie it was one of the toughest months in a long time.
Thanks to everyone thatâs is in my life & the love that you give, that I often feel I donât deserve. Grateful is an understatement. Hopefully speak more on this soon because I know how much sharing this stuff can help others but atm just focusing on bouncing back. If you are feeling the feels and think I can help at all please do reach out as Iâve always said.
Hereâs some photos and vids from the last while, onwards and upwards â¤ď¸
On our opening weekend we were visited by a Canberra local who wanted to enquire about booking tickets for her & her son Jonathan.
Due to sensory issues they were looking for the quietest session possible. We decided to instead open up early for them one morning so that he could come through without the crowds.
We been planning some sensory friendly / disability friendly sessions but during our time with him and his family we learnt a lot of really valuable information & got to see first-hand how much this meant to him and his family. We are now in conversations with capability support to help us design further sensory friendly & sessions that cater to the needs of people with different disabilities.
We will have more info on these soon & if you would like to be notified when these are confirmed and on sale then please send us a DM â¤ď¸
Last couple weeks, strawbs to Perth poddy show to a3 to Good Things Melbourne Sydney Brisbane to Gold Coast poddy show (where I was the walking dead) ⨠Dedicated post incoming for the national run we did w/ the gals - still decompressing on that one, core memories left right and centre â¤ď¸
Recently - Brisbane back down to Melbs and into one of the better weekends celebrating the bucks @plus.size.p and both versions of his lovely hen â¤ď¸
Have been cooking something up w/ the girls ⨠â 14.08.25 â Until then heres a collection of nice photos interspersed with sections of the offical âLingerâ music video - maybe we can try to get a nice photo together at some stage this year Lucy â¤ď¸
Friends & family - we have some really exciting things getting announced in the coming months at @happengroupau ⨠It would mean the world to us if youâd pop over and give us a follow & come along for the journey â¤ď¸
Promiseland 2024 - The Story So Far
Promiseland Festival (and Eden Fest NZ) in October 2024 was meant to be a huge opportunity for Happen Group. We were engaged to manage the entire artist services & industry ticketing operations - looking after the likes of Busta Rhymes, Omah Lay, Jorja Smith, Rema, Shenseea & many more a-list artists.
For our small team this was a massive job:
â˘â â 3,120+ hours of advance work over 26 weeks
â˘â â Building and managing a team that sold over 6,000 3-day festival tickets
â˘â â A team expansion just to handle the workload
â˘â â 709 people touring with 119 artists arriving in Australia (and some in NZ)
â˘â â 425 hotel rooms booked
â˘â â 1,252+ ground transfers coordinated
â˘â â Hospitality requirements fulfilled for 159 artist change rooms
â˘â â 58 drivers and 56 on-ground staff hired
â˘â â And during the three weeks around the show(s), we were on-call 24/7, responding in real-time to the needs of every artist we were responsible for
We pulled this off & after the festival we should have been celebrating. Sadly we were never compensated for our work. We have instead spent the past 9 months relentlessly trying to recover the money we are owed, not just for ourselves but for all of the contractors and suppliers. We have been chasing every avenue with the directors of Promiseland - having promises of partial payments, payment plans, external investors & endless reassurances that never materialised.
Happen Group is still owed over $125,000 by Promiseland (Festco) - not including $50,000 weâve personally paid out of goodwill to help soften the blow for contractors across Australia. This has brought us to the brink of collapse (financially, emotionally & operationally) but we are not sharing this for sympathy - we are sharing this for transparency & as a warning to anyone who is considering working with any of the past directors from Promiseland. This is a burden that we have been forced to carry, one that goes against everything we stand for & the way that we believe business should be done.
Continued in commentsâŚ
