Gold level Sponsor Level Guest…
Gold level Sponsor Level Guest Experience - Fantasy ball 2024
I attended Fantasy ball 2024 as a Gold Sponsor level guest - a package purchased by my girlfriend using my Media Advertising business as the sponsoring entity. She was ecstatic about this event from the moment she bought the tickets in fall 2022, planning everything down to a custom dress, all in anticipation of celebrating the weekend before her birthday. What we expected was a luxury, immersive fantasy experience. What we received was a disorganized, often unprofessional, and ultimately heartbreaking ordeal.
As Sponsors we were supposed to receive: 4 Royal Court tickets, company logo on all marketing materials (official website, flyers, etc), Mentions throughout the event, a Promotional Boost sent to the exclusive attendee mailing list with direct links, Logo printed on event items such as banners and gift bags, and 2 additional GA tickets to raffle or give away.
Now each royal court ticket was supposed to include: Access to Fridays Villagers Market place & Tavern Celebration, Exclusive Fae Tea Brunch, Mini Photo Shoot, Luxury 3 course dinner with the royal court, Saturday evenings fantasy ball, Wax sealed Mailed Invitation, Horse-Drawn carriage ride from Vehicle to the entrance, Early access to Villain Era Ticket sales, First choice time slots for makeup and hair services, and early venue access.
These features were promoted as VIP, Immersive, and Elegant - an unforgettable fantasy Experience. What we got was far from that.
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Early red Flags :
Shortly after purchasing the tickets, my girl friend paid $25 to attend a fantasy Fitting event here in San Antonio, that was later canceled- whether or not she received a refund she cant remember, nor could she find it on her bank statements for that year. That was the first sign something was off. Communication was problematic the entire time, and even now based off the other people we have talked to lately. When she first signed up for email announcements during the initial ticket purchase (because who is going to spend $1000.00 on an event and opt out of notifications about said event?) but when she started noticing she wasn't receiving any announcements, she reached out - only to be told she had declined the emails. She spent days having going back and forth conversations with the organizers to get it fixed and was met with unnecessary attitude and dismissiveness. This treatment was especially shocking considering she was considered a sponsor of the event.
In October the organizers began posting that they would soon be mailing out the special "wax sealed invitations", but months came and went, and soon it was December, and still nothing showed up. So they posted a message to us saying that the post office had lost every invitation during that post office fiasco that happened. They then said they would be sending them out all over again. and still nothing arrived. We didn't receive the invitations till the Sunday after the ball.
In the months leading up, the advertisements showed different venues, only for us to receive notice that at last minute they had to change all the venues, and then they also refused to send out an official schedule till barely a few weeks before (mind you the planning and advertising for this event began in Spring of 2022 and tickets went on sale that fall 2022) We ended up stuck trying to plan everything from hair appointments, trying to figure out information about our mini photo shoots, and carriage ride information and coordinating with our guests that the extra tickets had gone to - till almost the last minute. which was extremely stressful.
My girlfriend ended up simply saying " I just need to understand what is going on so I can make sure i am receiving what i paid for" and it honestly should have had to come to that.
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The photography mess
Only a few weeks before the event, we finally received some official contact from the photographers. Kate was kind enough to organize an extra shoot for my girlfriend simply because we were sponsors, though we never got any further details about this gift, such as how we could get the photos, if we would receive any free photos from this extra shoot, nothing. But we still appreciated it, at least until it was like fighting a honey badger to even receive the photos, because a year later, despite my girlfriends attempts to secure out photos, eventually i had to chase down the Eudantria Staff personally for the photos- and they weren't even delivered tilla few weeks back, and the staff was extremely rude about it, throwing it at me like was the bad guy for asking for the photos for my girl friend. and we aren't even the only people to not receive the photos.
unfortunately I am out of characters on this review to continue. Find the rest of my review on redi
February 8, 2025
Unprompted review