ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Vendors for the popular St. Augustine festival “As If! 90s Fest” are demanding answers regarding their refunds as complaints about the troubled festival continue to escalate.
A complaint was also filed in St. Johns County court against the festival’s organizer, Jeanetta Salyer, who is part of Ancient City Entertainment, the company in charge of the event.
Matthew Zaccone, owner of Lunar Crunch, and Kelsi Sheets, owner of Rugged Designs Clothing Company, are among the many vendors who said they are still trying to get a refund from the organizers of the “As If! 90’s Fest.”
“So we requested a refund, and it’s been several times now, I’ve emailed them and have not heard back at all yet,” Zaccone said.
Sheets said she also hasn’t had any luck reaching the organizers.
“I got zero replies. So, no communication at all. I’ve made comments on the As If! 90s Fest page. Now, I am no longer able to comment, so I’ve just had zero communication and effort about the refund for the 90s fest,” Sheets said.
The “As If! 90s Fest” has now been rescheduled three times since tickets first went on sale. It’s now set to happen sometime this fall.
Vendors are not the only ones who have voiced their concerns about unpaid refunds.
On Monday, News4JAX spoke with ticket holders who also said they’re still waiting on refunds after they were promised to be fulfilled by last week.
“I emailed them to escalate it like it said to, and she emailed me [Monday] and said to dispute it with my bank,” Krisann Bentley, a ticketholder, said. “But my bank has no record of it.”
Sheets said she had been participating in the festival for a couple of years.
“It is a major disappointment that this is how this year is being handled, but emails have gone out and no reply,” Sheets said. “The vendors, we invested in being there, and we have been left hanging on a refund or any communication of what is going on. She went and made the videos that she’s made, but will not communicate with any person. And I just wanted to speak for all the vendors, because we’re like a family, and we travel together to different places and do different events,” Sheets said.
For Zaccone, this was going to be his first year at the festival.
“And will definitely be the last time, for sure,” he said.
Not receiving a refund has been the last straw for many of the vendors.
Scott Hariton, owner of Scott’s Smoked Q, said he was able to reach the organizer, who agreed to have a phone conversation with him.
But that communication faded.
“Since then, it’s been like, four more messages and completely ghosted. No response whatsoever. I sent her a message two days ago saying, ‘Hey, back in town, would love to catch up and chat,’ and she hasn’t even, you know, Facebook, you can see when somebody sees the message, like she hasn’t even seen the message yet,” Hariton said.
Hariton said he feels discouraged about the situation.
“It is, it is what it is, but they need to be held accountable for what they did,” Hariton said.
News4JAX reached out to Salyer with Ancient City Entertainment for comment on the court filing, and at the time of this publication, we hadn’t heard back.
In a video posted by the St. Johns Citizen, the organizer addressed the issues with the festival and another event she promoted — the Blue Crab Festival in Palatka.
