As anger builds over cancelled festival,
organizer claims he was
"taken advantage of" by mysterious "people and companies."
Negative comments and a post by Southern Free Press
deleted from Facebook page for Heroes Music Fest.
Editor's Note: Be sure to read the comments from readers at the end of this report.
The information they contain is unconfirmed but, if true, provides fascinating insight into a story that isn't nearly over.
By CB Hackworth
cb.hackworth@southernfreepress.com
Musical talent poured into Hampton, just south of Atlanta, by the busload -- over three dozen top acts in all -- ready to rock and roll.
But like trees falling in a forest when no one is there to hear a sound, most of the performers never got to perform.
Everthing seemed fine early Thursday, as singer Gwen Sebastian typed a couple of lines to her fans via Twitter: But all was not fine.
It was a disaster.
Promoted for months as a "must see" event, and built around the 9-11 weekend as a celebration of "rock and remembrance," the Heroes Music Festival got underway on Thursday, but then -- suddenly and unexpectedly -- collapsed like the Twin Towers.
There wasn't much rock, but there will be plenty of remembrance.
With his wife Sara, Charles DeJournett had planned HMF for the last two years -- apparently while he was serving in the Air Force overseas.
Now, this young couple from Bonaire are stuck holding the bag, perhaps both legally and financially, and they find themselves accused by some not simply of mismanagement and misdirection, but of a crass attempt to cash in on the worst terrorist attack in American history.
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| Charles & Sara DeJournette |
The official Facebook page for HMF proclaims:
"September 11, 2001, will forever be a tragic day that changed the course of history in the United States of America. As time passes, children will be born who will not have memories of the day that four planes were hijacked and used as weapons to attack the United States on its own soil. The 2,976 lives lost on that day and the sacrifices made by the men and women serving in our military are far too valuable to be forgotten."
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| One wonders if the Army, Marine Corps, Navy & Air Force, not to mention generic police and fire departments everywhere, consented to the use of their emblems to promote Heroes Music Festival, and, if so, whether they can be sued, too? |
Back in April, he wrote: "This event has already surpassed our every expectation for a first year event."
But on opening day, it soon became obvious the "crowd" was painfully smaller than anticipated.
Sometime in the middle of the night, DeJournette's primary financial backer, Neal Boatright, apparently decided to take his money and run.
There's no way to know how many people were planing to attend the festival's other three days, or the amount of their trouble and expense.
Writing on Facebook, DeJournette said the organizers are heartbroken, too: "We feel the same way and are completely devistated by the news."
Not everyone has accepted the cancellation graciously.
Others, however, vigorously are defending DeJournette as an honorable man with the best of intentions.
Although damage control has been in full swing, anything resembling an apology has been hard to find.
Instead, the closest thing to an official cancellation was this rambling press release in which DeJournette first reminds the public of his military service, then portrays himself as a victim of Neal Boatright and just as much of a disappointed fan as anyone else.
Statement:Almost as if oblivious to the chaos, and potential liability, this failed venture has created, DeJournette continued to cheerfully say "thanks" as Friday night came to a close.
Closing of Heroes Music Festival
September 9-11, 2011 • Atlanta Motor Speedway
Issued By:
Charles DeJournett, Heroes Music Festival founder
(DeJournett is a 10-year Air Force Veteran who has deployed several times.)
The Heroes Music Festival has been a personal passion for me and my entire family. We've worked over the past two years to put this event together in honor and celebration of our service men and women. We are pleased in the outpour of artists who were not only willing to share their talents, but understand the importance of the message and significance of Heroes Music Fest overall. In a contract agreement, we aligned with an investor who demonstrated what we thought was the same passion and commitment, and we are just as surprised and devastated as the artists, vendors, and all involved, that our investor elected to walk away from the project early this morning.
Our primary concern and main priority at this time is to notify all parties of the cancellation due to this circumstance (including artists and those music fans who may be traveling from afar). We will address ticket refunds and vendor relations immediately thereafter.
We wish to personally thank all of the artists, their managers, the vendors, and our friends for joining us in this endeavor to fill September 11 with celebration and love--to give back to the folks who give of themselves each and every day.
It is my honor to have served with these selfless men and women and it was our hope to share our gratitude with them through song.
Then, as anger continued to build on Saturday, DeJournette suddenly proclaimed Boatright blameless in the debacle.
Rather, he alluded to mysterious, unnamed "people and companies" which allegedly have "taken advantage of" the DeJournettes.
Comments on the Facebook page are overwhelmingly supportive of DeJournett.
There may be a reason for that, however:
A number of complaints have been deleted. Here's one:
Taylor Hill Ashley "It's sad that everyone does not know the real story... Mr.Boatright put up the money & stood to loose not Charles. This is not about the military. Charles is exploiting the military for financial gain. The Truth will come out soon. If Mr. Boatright wouldn't have been misled by Charles they would not be in that situation today, Karma. Trust me they are monitoring this site & only keeping the good comments & deleting the ones they do not want people to see ... which is the truth!"Sure enough, that entry vanished from the Facebook page -- but only after Southern Free Press had transcribed it.
Likewise, a post by Southern Free Press directing readers to this article also has been taken down.
Copyright 2011
CB Hackworth, Inc.
Im here to set bthe record straight. First, Dejournett and his wife NEVER came up with the concept of Heroes Music Fest. It was my idea, which was shared with Dejournett at Bama Jam LASY YEAR. We were interested in bringing his now failed internet radio concept of NowFM in a s a sponsor. Dejournett ran to the corporations office and filed for a corporate license excluding me and his own partner at NowFM from being on it. I had introduced Dejournett to Mr Boatright. Mr Boatright agreed to invest to the festival after Dejournett FALSELY claimed to have large deposits of support already in the bank and guaranteed tickets sold at the Air Force base in Warner Robins GA. ALL Dejournett's claims were 100% LIES!...I demanded that Dejournett return Mr Boatright's money or I would contact the State Attorney's office. Dejournett continued to fill Mr Boatright with LIES. Mr Boatright believes in the cause and its intent, but unfortunately fell victim to Dejournett's tactics. Dejournett has never booked a backyard BBQ and had no business attempted this feat. There were countless mistakes made on his part that led to this failure. No one is to blame but Dejournett himself and his ego that would not allow him to stop. In the process, Dejournett fired everyone associated with him, including his own brother inlaw, who saw that only 15 tickets had been sold online. Listen folks, Dejournett was the PROMOTER, not Mr Boatright. Contracts were signed with Dejournett, NOT Mr Boatright. in the end, Dejournett is just one in a long line of greedy and incompetent people in this business and that is my opinion based my my FIRST HAND knowledge of the entire saga. I hate it but its true.
ReplyDeleteThat certainly would explain a great deal. Out of an abundance of precaution, you probably should contact the attorney general's office, if not the FBI, since it is clear that at least some tickets were sold by wire across state lines. If there is fraud involved, as you suggest, you should tell your story on the record.
ReplyDeleteEverything that was mentioned by the following anonymous person seems like a part of the story, which I have been looking for. Knowing all which is involved after, I highly assume the credentials to the writing and knowledge is spot on. Here is some more titillating information to those of interest.
ReplyDeleteCharles is believed to have hid all reference to who the investor was to everyone involved except for their “inner team”. Namely the festival as a whole is thought to only consisted of Sara Dejournett, Charles Dejournett & Jeremy Connell (who 2 weeks before the show resigned). There was also another gentlemen who resigned about 2 months before the show by the name of Rex Pardue. Everyone involved in the inner core of people lacked complete knowledge of booking artists to hiring production. No one in that team was able to decipher contracts or understand any concept of how to plan or market a concert of the orginally planned "20,000"+ a day attendance proportion to the point that safety and concern for the venue, artists, vendors & sponsors were of serious negligent consequences.
There were many professionals that were involved including multiple production companies, production managers, venue executive staff and others. Some who were hired, hired then fired and some who were lead to believe they were going to be hired for months but never hired. Most of all of the professionals who were involved tried their best to steer Charles and the Festival to a better place, however according to Charles he always knew better and never listened. Charles was told by many professionals involved to reduce the amount of days, hire a marketing company, reduce prices, drop stages and a variety of other items which were highly suggested to happen. Charles’s blunt ignorance never allowed his opinion or what he called “vision” to change and had a sever “ ego” as the other writer mentioned.
There were serious mistakes made and real money being spent, but no one was able to raise the red flag to the investor because no one knew who it was. It was heavily believed that Charles was lying to the investor about ticket sales as he often was heard telling people he had already sold thousands of tickets. No one believed Charles was disclosing any information to the investor, however we still do not know. It is believed that the investor was largely absent till literally the day of the event. There was talk that the investor already had so much into the project that Charles was feeding him whatever he could to keep his “vision” alive even if it failed as it was not his money. I will mention I do put some doubt into how ignorant the investor could have been as he himself could have reached out to someone, but it was not believed he ever tried.
Here is some startling information. Charles missed multiple payments to the venue in fact at one point in time all information regarding the festival on the speedways website was completely removed for over a week and heading to default. Apparently he was either able to scratch up the payments within a hour of the due date or the investor made another payment because he was already in the bag. 4 weeks before the show he had 24 tickets sold 14 days till the festival was to begin there was only 34 tickets sold for all 4 days. In fact on sep 8th the truth of the attendance was 6 advance sales and 1 walkup. All other tickets were comps and those who were there believed that maybe 50 at best were in attendance. Those who were truly taken advantage of where the vendors, ticket holders and sponsors. It is also believed that Charles possibly owes money to the venue still and the production company but is unknown.
For all those who were taken advantage of I am truly deeply sorry.
If one wishes to reach to me email mrannon@hotmail.com
Sincerely, Someone
It's funny you would think a festival that resembles a mini Woodstock for the Troops that was canceled on the first day, you would think thousands of people would be flocking to the Heroes Music Fest FB to express their thought's and or opinion's, but it appears that they are deleting comments that are too opinionated, My guess is that the very few AMERICANS who bought tickets or the staff who worked and was misled by Charles D do not have the freedom of speech on the very AMERICAN SITE Heroes Music Fesival.com they're only keeping the positive comments, they also Googled photo's of care packages being sent to the troops over seas and conveniently posted them to give the impression they had something to do with providing those packages! As a former Navy vet I am sickened by the exploitation of Sept. 11th and the troops who serve us and who have died for us, NOTE, there was not one military service member in attendance Thursday night! Charles and his wife belong in prison, they're not worthy of even our prison system here in America, they are criminals! To exploit our sacred military for financial gain and to mislead the vendors and staff who believed in the cause is a crime in my book and I hope they have their day in court and get what they deserve, my guess is a lot of the truth is about to surface on this!
ReplyDeleteThere were many professionals that were brought in from the beginning but Charles would never take any advise. He and his wife always knew better. All the pros soon found that this was a project better left alone.
ReplyDeleteThe youngest performer, Gabriel The Storm Jarrett, my 7 year old son was one of the last performers if not the last performer waiting to go on stage on friday for all of his fans that were coming that day to support the heroes of this country. He had even recorded a song specificlly for this event called Everything and this little boy really gave it everything he had to be at this event for the purpose of honoring and remembering 911. Even though the field was empty he still performed and helped two ladies who were there who had lost their sons to the 911 tragedy. We know of so many of the venders and music artist that were told that at least 30,000 tickets had been presold, and sadly there were people who didn't even have enough money to get back home. It has been hard to explain to my son what happened and even harder to explain to his fans and family. He was not there to make money but simply to do what he does best which is performing for charities and for events that are for a good cause which is what we were told this was.
ReplyDeleteDEJOURNETT told you there were 30k presold tickets, NOT Boatright!!! How much money do you think he lost??? Try 100s of thousands!!!
ReplyDeleteMany professionals were trying to reach the investor why did mr boatright not call someone?
ReplyDeleteReally? These wouldn't be the "professionals" who were getting paid Boatright's money by Dejournett would it? No one reached out to Boatright for 2 simple reasons: 1- They didnt know who he was and Chuckie wasn't going to tell them 2-They were riding the money train to the tune of $300K + dollars....Unfortunately, Boatright was too trusting and believed Dejournett's BS until he went and saw less than 50 people at a show that cost 100s of thousands of his dollars. Anybody in their right mind would pull the plug and stop the bleeding. As far as giving back BS that Dejournett was preaching...give back to WHO with WHAT???No one attended..there was nothing to give!!!
ReplyDeleteObviously, we hope to speak with Mr. Boatright and hope he'll get in touch. It sounds as though he has quite a story to tell if he will tell it.
ReplyDeleteI highly suggest you contact me at mrannon@hotmail.com I also highly suggest you reach cb.hackworth@southernfreepress.com otherwise I would assume you are not in the interest of contact. If you wish to be anonymous you can esily sign up for a free email hotmail.com account as i did.
ReplyDeletesincerly, someone