Hey Guys,
I hope you can all
see this. This is the previous owner of Aura Presents. I no longer have access
to this page so I cannot post something on the page it like I would like to
since I no longer have admin access. If you have a moment, please take some
time to read this and it will bring light to all that has happened with FSDMF
and Aura Presents. I am not a writer so please bare with me on that part J
Okay, so I figured the best thing to do was to give this to
you exactly how it happened and give you some info on myself. I am 28 years
old. I started going to raves in 1997 when I was only 13 years old with my
sisters who are older then me. They were what we would call real old school
ravers J.
I got into throwing smaller parties at the age of 16 all around Chicago and
Milwaukee. Some in other states as well. I would also help some of the other
bigger promoters out and I learned quickly how the industry works… now back
then things were a lot different. Shitty venues, all cash, the rave act. Tons
of drugs and so on… I continued to throw events until around 2001 when I
decided school was better option and found a normal job while going to school.
I then did some travelling and continued to be friendly and build my industry
relationships up. In 2007 I got back into throwing events… mainly in Milwaukee,
WI at clubs and The Rave.
I was under the wing of some major players at that time
really learning the major concert industry… now much different then the raves
back in the late 90’s. I did this for some time and then moved back to Chicago
in 2009. I worked at some nightclubs and was now working full time as just a
talent buyer and production manager for many big events and huge club shows
with major artists.
I moved around a little in the industry and continued to
build up my reputation with the agents, managers and artists while making sure
everything always went smoothly and my events were perfect. In May 2012 I was
hired full time to be the talent buyer for Aragon Ballroom. I thought right
away that this was a perfect dream job. I mean who in my shoes would not want
to be paid a good salary and work at one of the largest and most famous music
venues in the US right? So I started off strong in May 2012 with the agents.
Submitting almost 40 offers in the first week with all the best agencies.
Focusing on how nice Aragon was and knowing we could afford to pay a little
more since the room was bigger then our competitors and we wanted to build
something long term.
The only catch was that Aragon needed a brand to identify
with the kids and we wanted to make that happen. I mean I sure in the hell did
since I knew in a market like Chicago… we could not just do 12 big shows a year
and cherry pick the top 20 artists. The business does not work that way… you
have to be able to buy all types of shows from the agents to make them happy,
and do your part in helping build up the new guys. It is a joy to do as well…
bringing in the guy who just dropped that massive hit and know body knows will
only come back later and be a great investment. So with that said, I scouted
the venues we could work with and we tossed around some ideas. We came up with
V-Live Chicago (since it is very nice and can be 17+) as well as Board Room
Chicago for our VIP 21+ plays.
Now, since I am 28 and not exactly rich… I could not do this
on my own so it was kind of just a pipe dream at this point and I knew unless
Aragon was on board to fork over the money for events all over Chicago… this
was not going to happen and buying shows for Aragon was going to be hard to do.
I had talked with one of the owners (aragon) sons many times in the past about
throwing a music festival and I always blew it off (we will call this guy Bob
for this letter). Since React was on top of their game and I really did not want
to deal with the political bullshit that goes along with fighting for talent. I
did on the other hand know that I could pull it off and being a perfectionist
like I am… I knew I could pull it off better then 90% of the promoters. I had
some major support behind me from guys I can’t exactly mention here. Needless
to say, it was all a go with the right people behind me.
So I met with Bob a few times regarding the festival and
other shows around Chicago and it all sounded great. I mean if you were to see
this guy, his $150,000 car, watches, clothes and condo… you would think you are
on easy street when it comes to the shows too. Money is everything
unfortunately in this business. The more money or capital you have behind you
the more you can pull off. Just like any other major business.
So… We are now in the first week of June 2012. I had met
with Bob many times and a lawyer he knew. This lawyer is good… like holy shit
good. We will get back to that in a minute, first we have to go over some other
stuff. So now we are about two weeks after I submitted the 40 offers for shows
at Aragon Ballroom and a few at V-Live Chicago. Since these were same owners
and all offers were approved by Aragon in our first big meeting before
submitting the initial offers. Now mind you, before I began and while I began
at Aragon. I had a 99% clean record with the agents. I was not the biggest
talent buyer in the Midwest by any means… but I was efficient, honest and on
point with all my shit. Always paid on time, always treated artists and
managers like gold, always had the best of the best equipment and production,
riders were always on point, great hotels and dinners. Never replied late to
one of the 300+ emails I was getting a day for years… always going above and
beyond for my job.
Okay back on track… so I walk into a meeting hyped to tell
the owners that we had just confirmed Rusko & ATB for Aragon Ballroom! This
is huge right? I am shit, for a venue who has only done 2 or 3 dance events in
the past 5 years and knowing they were dying to get into the dance game I
thought this would have blown their minds getting someone like Rusko away from
Congress… he did have a great track record with React after 5 or so sold out
shows. I mean the agent went out of his way to make this happen and give the
room a chance. He could have easily gave it to Congress and had a safe play and
same goes with ATB, Tritonal show and their agents. Now here in lies the rub as
my mother would say. These owners talked in Spanish for a few minutes so I could
not understand them and just came out and said we no longer want to do dance
shows here. My jaw kind of dropped, I got that weird feeling in my throat and
my stomach began to feel funny. I was shocked! I mean they did not realize how
much I had to do to get these shows confirmed for them… I mean shit, I had to
literally promise and put my entire rep on the line to get the agents and
managers to go a new route. So I kind of tried to convince them otherwise for
about 15 minutes and it was not happening. So I kindly got up and returned to
my desk in awe. I was then told about 20 minutes later that they wanted to the
shows, they just did not want to put up the deposit money or get vested into
them. I still had a job, but now I had nobody to pay for the shows I just spent
2 weeks convincing the agents to sell to me.
Now this is where the game changed and shit got real as some
would say. I walked into Bobs office. Since he was so close to them and family…
and said dude, what the fuck do we do now? How I am supposed to fix this shit?
He simply said well this is fine, let’s just do it ourselves. We will make more
money anyway and this is a great thing for us. Go ahead and start the brand
that you wanted to and I will pay for it. Now remember back to the cars, clothes,
condo, stories and history of being rich I kind of got into above. This was
amazing! I still had my salary job and now I had my own company to start. I
spent all day going over previous company names I liked and so on. I decided I
would call it Aura Presents… I wrote up a quick plan, came up with a company
mission’s statement and began a small business plan. I went back into Bob’s
office the next day and we came up with a game plan. We would not only do the
shows that Aragon had offered for… but we would not go headfirst and throw the
festival we had talked about for years. I was worried at first, but knew that
with the right amount of money and proper investors… we would make this the
biggest and best dance festival in the northern region of the US. I was not
even going to get into this unless it was bigger and better then everything
else. The market is already flooded like no other and if you are not going to
go above and beyond others.., then you are not going to make it. Not only
because of the fans, but because the agents are not going to support it the way
you need them to.
I then ran some numbers over the next few days, met with a
business annalist and my accountant… and had a great plan. I knew right away
that we wanted Toyota Park so we were quick to scoop that up and get it locked
in as much as we could at that time. Since that was locked in, I began to hire
a team and we were off on the journey. Now… as mentioned earlier in this
letter. I met with Bob and his attorney and we sat down for almost 4 hours
going over the budget sheets, profit and loss projections and everything else
that goes into a major event like this. Everything was on point and we were
ready to rock! Well, at least I thought we were. I left that meeting assured
that money was not an issue. Getting the first $2,000,000 was going to take a
month (early August) and the other smaller shows would be funded right away. We
sat down the next day and went over ownership. I was to own 40% of Aura
Presents, Bob was to own 23%, Bob 2 was to own 23% (another Aragon employee,
very experienced with national touring and concerts including things like MSG
and more), and the lawyer was going to own 12% for all of our legal costs. This
way we did not have to pay his retainer or fees. He would profit when we
profited.
I went home that day more excited to work then I ever have
in my life. I was fucking hyped and knew or at least I thought I knew this was
going to be something big! I mean shit, I even called my parents and told them.
As well as my old bosses and mentors… I was ready and so was my team. I spent
all night going over festival names and ideas. I woke up with Future Sound
Dance Music Festival chosen and now the games were about to begin. Now at this
point we had confirmed Rusko, ATB, Tritonal, Feed Me, Inna Live, Angerfist,
Headhunterz, Foreign Beggars, Tommy Lee & Aero and The Killabits for shows
outside of the festival realm. I had Bob’s credit cards and we were hitting
shit hard. I probably spent $20,000 in the 2nd and 3rd
week of June on just logos and artwork alone. We were using the best of the
best for everything we did. Just as I had planned… We had hooked up with Mark
Ward out of London for production on the festival (same guys who designed
Deadmau5’s tour set up, as well as things like U2. These guys are some of the
best) At this point money was flowing and life was good. I had no reason to
suspect what was to come in the future. So I put together the incredible
festival introductory letter, copied every agent in the business and hit send.
The next day my inbox was full of emails from the agents I
called friends at this time wondering who was behind this and what was going
on. I explained in great detail where the money was coming from and the team I
had behind it. They were just as excited as I was to see and hear more and
possibly move forward. It was now early to middle of July I believe. We had
already announced the festival and began spending money on advertisement to
build the fan page. The hype was good and I was even more excited now then
ever. The hype and support from you guys was amazing and we knew we had
something special. Not only on the festival page but the Aura page.
We began submitting hundreds of offers for the festival. I
mean hundreds and hundreds. We knew we needed 70 headliners and we were going
to get them. I mean I did have $2,000,000 coming from Bob in a few weeks from
this point. I needed to get contracts and get ahead of the competition if I
wanted to make this what we wanted. I was flying out to LA and NYC for meetings
with the agents and all was well. Remember, at this time this was all being
paid for by Bob. I had no suspicions. I mean who in their right mind is going
to spend almost $30,000 on marketing and travel for nothing.
I think it was the end of July and we released some contest
tickets and very early birds. I needed to see if people were interested and
they were, we sold about 250 tickets to a festival with no line up released. I
was so happy and knew we were going to have something big here. I stayed on the
agents hard, offering some stronger offers then our competitors if they
confirmed this far out. Well… with all the work that had been done it was
starting to pay off. We had confirmed a massive fucking line up for a first
year festival but I could not release much cause of radius clauses. So when I
was posting that FSDMF was going to be huge. It was massive and anyone who had
bought a ticket was in for a steal of a life time.
It was two days before Lolla and I was getting ready to go
on another business trip for the festival when I sat down and went over exactly
who was confirmed and below is the list.
Aura Presents Events (outside festival confirmed)
Rusko
ATB
Tritonal
Feed Me
Super8 & Tab
Angerfist
Headhunterz
Inna Live
Foreign Beggars
Tommy Lee & Aero
The Killabits
Tittsworth
Future Sound Dance Music Festival (confirmed) – July 29th
Tiesto
David Guetta
Wiz Khalifa (no contract, but we were right there at this
time and had it)
Benny Benassi
Dash Berlin
Zeds Dead
Knife Party (no contract, but we were right there at this
time and had it)
Gareth Emery
Diplo
Duck Sauce
Fedde Le Grand
Rusko
Paul Oakenfold
Datsik
Magnetic Man
Morgan Page
Skream & Benga
Caspa
RJD2
DJ Blend
Lucky Date
Audrey Napoleon
Filo & Peri
Le Castle Vania
Betatraxx
Starkillers
Inpetto
Stafford Brothers
Sluggo
The Killabits
Tittsworth
Plus many many more that we were on very close to confirming
at this point…. So things were looking good to say the least since we were 8
months out and had one of the best line ups we had seen in this region.
The next day I was on my way to do some golfing with a
friend and take a much needed day off when my cell phone rang as we were
pulling into the parking lot. I was surprised to see the caller ID said Pasqual
Rotella Insomniac. I told my buddy to turn the music off and shut up in those
exact words. I answered the phone and Pasqual said whats up and asked if I had
a moment to chat. He mentioned that we might have a small issue. I immediately
knew what this was regarding and let him talk. He mentioned that he was talking
to Tiesto’s agent and was told about my festival. He wanted to know how big I
had planned to go and told me he had a small problem. He said I have a venue
confirmed for EDC Chicago that same weekend. I was in shock and got that same
failure feeling in my throat and stomach. I was not mad and figured there was a
way to work this out. I mean I had contracts for a large amount of headliners
and was close to locking in about another 30 very soon, so needless to say I
was not too worried. Pasquale is a pretty stand up guy and he is a great
businessman. He was honest and was not going to beat around the bush and told
me he would rather not go head to head in a market I live in. He asked if he
could fly me out to LA for a couple days so we could meet and find a solution.
I told him I was headed to El Paso that weekend to check out my friend show
festival (Disco Donnie) and I would be in LA anyway on Monday so we could meet
then. I was already planning on being in LA for that entire week for some
meetings so this was good timing. We talked a few more minutes, said our
goodbyes and I went on with my day golfing.
That Saturday morning I flew to El Paso for SCMF in El Paso
to hang out with Donnie and check out some production he had coming in. I had a
great time at the festival both days and drank a little too much with Donnie
the first night. We met the next day and he advised me on a few things and that
night I flew to LA and met up with my VP operations in LA. He met me at LAX a little
after my plain arrived since he was flying from Chicago and we were off to the
hotel to check in. I spoke with Pasquale a bunch via text during this time and
we had set a meeting.
I went to the Insomniac office on Tuesday of that week to
see if we could find a solution to this problem we were both in. I stepped into
his office and it was me and my VP operations and Pasquale plus his attorney
and CGO/CFO. These guys are smart and they knew what they wanted, they also
made it rather clear that they were not worried about going head to head with
Future Sound but that they rather not do that. So we talked for about 2 hours,
went over my numbers, the line up and tried to come up with a game plan. We had
also talked about Chicago in general and all the other shows and venues we
worked with and were working on. I noticed that they were intrigued by this and
wanted to hear more.
We spent the next few days meeting and going over
everything. We had come to a conclusion that having both festivals was just not
healthy obviously. They had some side bar meetings and proposed that maybe
buying Aura (hiring our team really) and joining the festivals would be the
best idea. We just had to make it work logistically. That was the hard part… so
we left LA that Friday excited to most likely be the new Insomniac Midwest
full-scale office. We were going to bring the real Insomniac experience to the
Midwest for the first time. At least we thought we were going to since it
sounded really good at the time.
I then flew to NYC for a few days and some more meetings and
finally came home middle of September. Now this is where shit gets interesting…
I had noticed that some deposits were past due on the festival and others for
the outside of the festival. I really did not think too much of it since I knew
the festival money was delayed for some other reasons. I mean this is not
abnormal considering we are talking millions of dollars. Sometimes it takes a
little more time then planned. So I continued to talk with Insomniac and we put
all offers and such on hold until we had an exact answer from the Insomniac on
what was the next move exactly. A few weeks went by and in those few weeks is
when I realized that shit was not as it had seemed… It all began to come clear
when I noticed some of Bob’s credit cards were not working anymore. Even this
was not too abnormal, I mean I was using 10 of them for a lot of money on
advertisements and maybe he had not paid them yet since it was all happening
quickly. Insomniac had reached out and said they needed some information on our
investors, I asked the attorney and Bob and got the answered they needed. A few
days later Insomniac pretty much came back and said that they wanted to find a
way to partner on EDC Chicago but we needed to put our investors money up to
make it work. Well I went to Bob and the attorney with this and was told no. I
mean I could understand, they did not want to build up someone else’s brand but
it seemed it a bit weird to not want to own part of such a great name. I did
not really care much either way; as long as we were still on board I had no
concerns. I knew with a good line up and good ticket prices we would be just
fine in the long run. So basically the Insomniac deal began to fade away and I
knew they would probably be doing EDC Chicago in 2013 but was not sure if they
would 100% go up against us or move the date to make it easier on everyone.
They were never assholes and they were never cocky or pushy. It was just
something that did not seem to fit at the time and all was going to be fine.
Then I started to
notice that things were not adding up around September 22nd, 23rd.
No ads were running, some deposits were way past due… not just the festival, but
even the smaller shows. The festival I was still not too concerned about, since
it was so far out and nobody likes to pay deposits that far out. I was worried
at this time but not freaking out by any means. On the other hand, I was
freaking out about the other shows since all of a sudden there was no money
from Bob. No money means no marketing, no marketing means no people, no people
means no profit and shit rolls down hill as we all know. So along came Feed Me
on September 27th I believe. I was looking at ticket sales and
freaking the fuck out. I mean how does Feed Me only sell 150 tickets in
Chicago?! Well… because of no marketing. I was also at the same time concerned
with Rusko and some other shows. We had to cancel another show due to
low-ticket sales and a late deposit. (not unpaid but late). Bob had paid around
40% of the Rusko show deposit but the agent wanted the 50% he was promised and
rightfully so. Now over the next few days and leading into the first week of
October I was getting really worried and was not too sure on what to do. Here I
stuck my neck out for Bob and this attorney who told me pretty much that money
was not an issue and I was slowly being ass fucked by these guys to put it
bluntly. I was now getting angry emails from the same agents who I used to joke
around with on a daily basis and never had a bad strike with. I now knew that I
had fucked up more then words can describe. I mean shit, I put almost 15 years
of my life into this music and career wise I was 6-7 years vested. This is not
the type of business where you fuck up, get fired and move onto the next
company. This is a relationship business and it is all who you know and how
strong your word is.
The first weekend of October may have been the worst weekend
of my life. An agent who I looked up to a lot and who went out of his way to
support on the festival sent me the worst email of my life. He may have not
wanted to do it, but he could not hold out any longer. That email consisted of
cancelations of Tiesto, David Guetta, Fedde Le Grand, Benny Benassi and Zeds
Dead. I mean talk about a huge slap in the fucking face. I called Bob and
Attorney right away and Bob pretty much said don’t worry about it. We will get
it paid and all will be fine, how the fuck in your right mind can someone sit
there and tell me everything is going to be okay? No Bob, everything is not
okay… everything is fucked!!! So the attorney talked to this agent and the
agent pretty much said if they come up with the deposit/binder money quickly
then he will probably re confirm these artists. I sat in my office and pretty
much knew that I was 95% fucked. I still had 5% hope left in me considering Bob
did spend almost $50,000 on preliminary marketing and who the hell is going to
dump $50,000 down the drain unless they planned on coming through. I don’t care
how right you are, nobody throws away $50,000. At least I thought that was the
case.
Now I guess I don’t really need to go on much further guys
but what happened next was like a stack of dominos falling fast… but instead it
was the career I put so much of my life into. I love dance music and I loved
producing events. It is something that I really had a lot of passion for.
The middle of October consisted of a couple weeks of hell.
Emails were coming in about deposits like you could not believe. I was getting
bitched at from every angle and I could barely keep up… yet that whole time Bob
and the attorney seemed like everything would be fine and I was crazy for being
pissed off. Although at this time I began to find out the truth that the money
was never really 100% secured and they were only close to getting it. Now they
are not complete liars by any means. These guys do some major events all over
the world and they do know many big players with a lot of money. I just wish
that day when Aragon said they did not want to do the events anymore or pay for
them should I say that Bob would not have said he would and I should. That
would have saved a lot of trouble for everyone, not to mention my career. At
that time I was on fire for the most part. I probably could have gone to Vegas
and had a job at top club with no issues. Disco Donnie or maybe even Insomniac
could have hired me. Who knows what could have happened and now I will never
know.
October 23rd shit really started to hit the fan,
there was no money to pay Rusko his final payment and the night of show and I
was in shock by all this shit. I could not believe that I put myself in this
situation. I mean what the fuck was I thinking… but I had nobody to blame but
myself. I put myself in this situation and it could have been prevented many
times over again. Since Rusko was not marketed that well due to no money and
the fact that it was Halloween weekend and there was 30 other dance shows in
Chicago… it was going from bad to worse quickly. They wanted to dump all the
production I had lined up and things did not look good. I was not going to let
that happen though. I wanted to give the fans what they paid for so the
production stayed. Luckily a day prior to Rusko show Aragon decided they would
put up some money to pay the final amount since they did not want a riot at
their venue if the artist did not go on stage.
Now a week or so prior to that I was in a meeting in Bobs
office with everyone who owned Aura besides the attorney and we trying to
figure out how we were going to market all these events we had coming up
outside of the festival so they would not flop. I was told to use V-Live’s
credit card and we could pay them back when we settled the shows we had at
their venues (aragon and v-live). So I went ahead and ran the ads for our upcoming
shows to their budgets like planned. The night of the Rusko show is when shit
really hit the fan. One of the main owners came up to me and asked if I had
used their credit card to run facebook ads. I told him yes but I could not tell
him that Bob and other Aragon employee told me to since the owners were not
supposed to know they were involved in Aura at all due to conflict of interest.
So the owner pretty much assumed I stole from them, when that is the last thing
I was doing. I advised against it when it was suggested but went ahead anyway
assuming it was okay considering it was of the owner’s sons and another top
employee telling me to do so. Shitty part is, when I asked Bob to tell the
owners he told me to do it… he simply said he had no idea I was running those
ads. This was the straw that broke the camels back. I had officially realized I
had been fucking scammed by some guys who really did not give two shits about
me.
Now after the Rusko shit was just over with in my eyes. I
was no longer being paid any salary. Aura was losing money and I was not being
paid…. So I pretty much figured my career was over and there was not much I
could really do. I decided I needed to take a week to step back and really
think about what had just happened over the past 4 months. Well that only led
to even more shit hitting the fan. The attorney and Bob decided to go to the
same agents they fucked over through me and decided to tell them I went AWOL
and I was on drugs! Not to mention that I stole some crazy amount of money. I
will be out front and honest about this shit. I do not do drugs for one. I
don’t even really drink, let alone do drugs. I have not even smoked pot in over
2.5 years and am about as clean as 28 year old can get besides cigarettes and
coffee/redbull. I also did not steal money from Aura. I made a total of $7,200
from the middle of July until October 20th or so. I was told I was
to make $80,000/year for running the company at first. Times were tough and we
were growing so then I went down to $1,000/week without issue. I ended up
making $7,200 over 3.5 months. That is not stealing… that is just getting by.
I did screw up once or twice and paid for a hotel when I
should not have… but shit I am human too and when a company has owners telling
them they are getting millions of dollars I was not too concerned about it.
So at the end of this all I can say is I am sorry I let
everyone of you down. I can’t really describe how shitty I feel about all of
this. You guys trusted Aura or me with your money and I let you down. I fucked
up my entire life/career while doing so. If I can give you any advice after
this it would be to never trust anyone in business as you never really know
what they are capable of. I am also left with a lot of lawsuits for agents and
more and it forced me into bankruptcy and the only way out. I think those same
guys went and started a company called Aura LLC instead of my company Aura
Presents Inc. that is filing for bankruptcy. They may think that the agents
will work with them but hopefully they will not. They don’t know dance music
and what we love. They only know what they like and that is not dance music…
They took my email program over so I cannot access Aura’s emails, they took
over the aura page and the festival page so I am no longer an admin… I did hear
they are trying to still pull off the festival but I don’t see how and I
SUGGEST you get a refund since it will be shit now I am sure. Once again, I
don’t know what else to say but I am so sorry and hope somehow you can forgive
me. I got what I deserved and hope you all continue to support dance music. It
is the greatest music on earth in my opinion and it has the best fans the
world.
P.S. I am sure there is some parts I missed and I am sorry,
I was trying to keep it somewhat short while including the most important
stuff. See below if curious about anything. Thanks again guys and please don’t
think I wrote this as a pity party or want you to feel bad for me. I just
wanted to let you know exactly what happened in the best way I could. Not sure
how else to explain and did not want to give you some bullshit lie of a
statement.
Best,
CEO
Aura Presents Inc.
If you need to get in contact with me, you can email me at thefallofaura@gmail.com - I can help
answer any questions and concerns to get this resolved.
