Readers Take Denver 2024 Was the Fyre Festival for Books, Say Local Authors and Attendees

Many online have likened the debacle that was the Readers Take Denver 2024 event to a Fyre Festival-level disaster. In other words, "it was a total shitshow," according to author Nora Phoenix.

The massive meet-an-author book-signing event, which had its second iteration at the Gaylord Rockies Resort over the weekend of April 18-21, was billed as fan-friendly. Organizer and author Lisa Renee Jones, who didn't respond to requests for comment, went so far as to promise that under no circumstances would the event have any sort of lines.

But the hours-long registration lines with which both authors and participants were met upon arrival were only a sour taste of what was to come.

"The line started out massive, but just when we got close to what we thought was the front, it started looping. And looping, and looping," Phoenix says. "It was frickin' madness. I think if the organizers hadn't gone out of their way to say there'd be no lines, people might have felt differently. I mean, the lines would have still been too long, and they could have done better, but the fact that they promised one thing and then it was the exact opposite...well, insult to injury." That could be taken literally: One attendee reported receiving a black eye.

In the wake of the event, groups gathered on social media, calling themselves "survivors," including a Facebook group that's nearly 600 members strong so far. The group is meant to provide a place "where screenshots don't get deleted and we can talk about the difficult stuff." Deleted messages on the Readers Take Denver social media platforms were only part of the complaints about how the event was run. Many report having even their questions removed, let alone any negative feedback.
The inability to communicate effectively with other "survivors" prompted paranormal romance writer Kate Hall, who writes under the pseudonym Alexis Pierce, to film a video and upload it to YouTube. In that video, she relates her experiences at the convention, which include serious safety concerns to the mental and physical well-being of authors and attendees alike.

In these accusations, she wasn't alone. New York Times bestselling author Kristen Ashley says that the trouble really began with the run-up to the 2024 event. Or even a year before, with the 2023 event. Both iterations, according to Ashley, were "convoluted," "confusing" or just "not thorough." She says that while there was a lot of communication, it was ineffective. "Just reading through the sponsorship opportunities for RTD24 could make your eyes cross," she says.

Ashley recounts a number of ways the organizational ball was utterly fumbled once the event began, starting with one of the most important aspects: the books themselves. "It’s not unusual for a convention organizer to have a bookseller on site," she says. "In these instances, there’s a space for a store to set up, and attendees can browse or go to the store to pick up their pre-orders." Instead, a portion of her books were delivered directly to Ashley's signing area. "It’s highly inappropriate to expect an author to provide a product purchased from a third party to a customer," she says. "This was without my knowledge, and without any accounting of what books were at my table and who purchased them."

And worse, many pre-purchased books weren't delivered. "I had no idea where to direct people to get their books," says Ashley, who adds that attendees "had to wait for their number to be called to get to the room in which I was signing, and then they had to wait in line to get to me. At this juncture, telling someone I did not have their book, and they had to find it somewhere else and return to me to get it signed, was upsetting, to say the least."

The list of complaints continues, from the aforementioned abominable lines to nothing starting on time to everything being run by overworked volunteers. There was supposed to be an author's "break room." There wasn't. One of the most head-shaking moments came at an expensive luncheon, where attendees paid $125 to receive a "lackluster lunch." But what really astounded Ashley was that the event, which was sold as an experience to be in conversation with a favorite author, instead included speakers in a way that severely cut into the time the authors had to talk with their fans.

"From the big things to the small details, everything was fumbled," says Ashley. "Everything."

Perhaps most objectionable was the complete lack of ADA accessibility. "Honestly, it would be a miracle if anyone in a wheelchair was able to navigate the signing room I was in," Ashley scoffs. "And not all people living with disabilities have seen disabilities. There were a few seating areas on the walk up to the convention area, but not nearly enough for that amount of people. There were no chairs scattered around should someone need to take a break from standing. And I didn’t see a single water station."

Most worrisome was an apparent and complete lack of security. "They didn’t check badges anywhere. We walked in wherever we wanted without a single person stopping us and checking badges. This is highly unusual to the point I’ve never seen it happen before," says Ashley. "When the vast majority of attendees are women, these safeguards are essential."

Indeed, one attendee was reportedly accosted on the dance floor at a Friday evening event by one of three men who were not there with Readers Take Denver, but rather with a separate conference at the same location. Organizer Jones confirmed this (and claims that her staff handled it quickly, and that organizers plan to increase badge-checking and overall security in the future) in an email that went out to participating authors on April 22 — an email that many found to be dismissive, deflective and insufficient. "I couldn't believe it," says Phoenix, who supplied a copy of both that email and one that went out to all participants that referred to the failures of the event as "bumpy bumps."

But this was when the 2025 event was still going to happen. By the end of that same week, it had been canceled, with no explanation on the event website as to specifically why, or whether it will return in years to come.

"These cons are normally a fabulous time," says Ashley. "I go to be with readers, but also to hang with my author sisters. In a lot of ways, they’re like family reunions for readers and authors. In reading the experiences after the fact, it broke my heart. This was a very expensive event for readers to attend, and to have our readers lay out that much cash to commune with the community only to come away with those experiences?"

She says there's really only one word for the debacle that was Readers Take Denver 2024: "heartbreaking."