Celebrating the end of a huge summer surrounded by the best of the best at the highest roof top in Melbourne.
Happen x It Miracle + all our friends takeover the skybox for 7 hours this Monday.
Going B2B2B with my beautiful wife Lady Koq and my best Mate Boff Daddy under the new and ridiculous alias - Daddy’s Rude Koq.
Tickets via @thebreakfastclub_melbourne
Let’s get it!
Friends & family - we have some really exciting things getting announced in the coming months at @happengroupau ✨ It would mean the world to us if you’d pop over and give us a follow & come along for the journey ❤️
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:
• 3,120+ hours of advance work over 26 weeks
• Building and managing a team that sold over 6,000 3-day festival tickets
• A team expansion just to handle the workload
• 709 people touring with 119 artists arriving in Australia (and some in NZ)
• 425 hotel rooms booked
• 1,252+ ground transfers coordinated
• Hospitality requirements fulfilled for 159 artist change rooms
• 58 drivers and 56 on-ground staff hired
• 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 we’ve 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 comments…
Introducing our first chef residency July 19th - a bit of food, a bit of wine, and a bit of mischief after dark.
Join us for a big one: Jesse in the kitchen, @alphaboxdice in your glass, @anyo_castro on the decks, and live art by @anahitaamouzegarart
8 courses, good wine, and a night that doesn’t end when the last plate’s cleared.
Tickets are limited. On sale 27th June 12PM.
Times have been wild. But our spirits are so high! You guys have rallied around us more than we could have ever imagined.
Bring on Saturday! We can’t wait to hug, kiss, thank and feed you all. And for that we made 500 fresh salsiches! Nothing but the best for our friends. 🌭
WE ARE READY 🥊 LET’S DO THIS!
🎥 by @jarrahvolpe ❤️😂
FULL DJ LINEUP DROPED 🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽
It doesn’t get much juicier than this!
It’s been an amazing month putting together this incredible lineup. Every single one of these musicians, artists, market stalls, performers, workshops and food vendors were prepped and loaded to do their thing at Esoteric before the last minute cancellation.
In some shape or form we were all affected and it’s been so amazing to be apart of this community who have wholeheartedly come together to put on what’s set to be a soul moving event.
Doors open at 10am, with every ticket getting you a FREE meal from one of our food trucks which will be set up in the courtyard.
Kids under 12 are FREE with all little one’s welcome until 5pm.
Can’t wait to see you all there!
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for getting around us when we needed it most.
❤️❤️❤️
📣📣📣 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT INCOMING📣📣 📣
With such an overwhelming response from our community, we’re SO excited to drop this amazing lineup.
➡️➡️➡️ Swipe for full entertainment program.
Doors to the Moby Dick’s Community Fundraiser open at 10am with entertainment for all ages, all day long.
During the day you can expect beautiful live music from @brent.hayhurst@tanyageorgemusic@thevictorscale_music & @tuli.live.music
Roving acts that are especially fun for the kiddos such as @groovymoovyentertainment@mrmarmalademagic and some epic workshops for us adults with @juliavogl_ & @i_am_alchemy_melbourne plus live performances from @elemental_entertainment & hand balancing by @danikabishev
We also have an amazing selection of market stalls and a beautiful art gallery, just like you’d expect to experience at your favourite festival. @bryan_itch@cultivatorsofnonsense@delisnack.art@elemtopia@jesamiefloss@ramblingrosie.creative@theregen.love@shwshanni@torievecreative@visionaryartbymessiah
Of course you’ll find @Chichs.salsiches & @liveyorulemon food stalls set up all day long ready to feed you.
Once the sunsets, the little kids go home and the big kids can play. For the night shift we have an incredible lineup of DJ’s ready to transport us all to the doof so we can finally relish in this long anticipated dancefloor release!
@akashic.records_music@bekla_@joni_davies@calyjandro@jules_etro@dj.hafner@liamsieker@wilma_music@theoddnessmusic@lunchy_bloom we can’t wait to blow the roof off this warehouse!
What an incredible feeling it has been to have so many of our family, friends (& even strangers) band together to support us in every way possible. Whether you’ve purchased a ticket to this event, made a donation towards the cause, offered your services, given something for our raffle, hit us up to be apart of the day in someway or even simply called one of us to check in. THANK YOU! It means the absolute world to us all and we can’t wait to come together to celebrate this incredible community with you all on April 26th.
Big love from all the crews. We can’t wait to show our gratitude!
A big THANK YOU from Paris, Samuel & Tuli ❤️
☀️Only 26 Sleeps until this epic event
🔗 TICKET/ DONATION LINK IN BIO
🕺🏾Full entertainment programme announcement dropping soon (strap yourselves in, it’s gonna be big)
📍The Industrique, Coburg
Family & Friends.
I am reaching out to all of you at this time as I really need your help.
(Link to support us in my bio)
A couple weeks ago my food stall Chich’s Salsiches was all set up & ready to trade at Esoteric Festival. When at the very last minute the event was cancelled due to a permit issue. This has unfortunately put me in a really bad place.
We were all completely blindsided by this and it very quickly became a harsh reality that all of mine & Dominiques personal savings was sitting in a 3 tonne fridge truck, a 3 tonne freezer truck, event fees & staff wages… & it was about to go down the drain. This isn’t a little operation, this is a huge 6m x 12m industrial doof kitchen that takes 5 people and 2 full days just to set up. Add in 100’s of hours of preparation, all of our money and a ridiculous amount physical labour and energy just to get the business on (and off) the trucks and ready to trade. Blessed by our network we were able to quickly pivot and move our entire operation to Pitch Music & Arts festival. A massive feat in itself… 12 of our staff worked nonstop over 26 hours to pack down our set up at Esoteric and drive 3 hours to Pitch only to re-set it all up again, to allow us the opportunity to trade. We can’t thank the team at Pitch enough for their support. From the directors to the site team and the food vendor manager, you are all legends!
Although we traded, the loss of days moving and the new environment was not what we had prepared for and unfortunately we were only able to make back 30% of our original investment. This has left our business with a massive debt. Add in a beautiful 2 year old daughter & a mortgage… it’s been a really tough pill to swallow. Especially considering how much work went into the whole operation.
So, our solution. We have come together with the Moby Dick’s community and we are doing the only thing we know how. Run a sick party, serve delicious food and hopefully save our business. All while having a sick fucking time with our friends…
Continued in comments!
Plates edition 001 - Thank you to everyone who joined us at our inaugural event. Good food was served in better company, we are excited to share our next edition with you. Details to come ❤️
