A popular romance and fantasy book festival scheduled to take place at the Gaylord Texan in March has now been cancelled.
Sammy Coyle is part of an online romance and fantasy book club and says for months, about 45 members were looking forward to attending the Dreamers & Readers Festival.
“A lot of people are oscillating between being devastated that they don’t get to see these friends and this experience and enjoy it, and there’s a lot of anger I’ve seen in the community as well,” she said.
Eventbrite
She says now, just about two weeks before the event was set to be held at the Gaylord Texan Resort, the organizer has cancelled it.
“Many of us put a lot of money into it, not just for flights, hotels and the cost to attend the event, but I’m a photographer, and I do cosplay photography, so I had booked a couple shoots I then had to refund, so I’m out that money as well,” she said. “I’m out at least $1,200!”
Coyle says around 2,000 people were planning to attend.
Venue financial requirements were unmet
Organizers say they couldn’t meet the venue’s financial requirements.
In a statement shared on social media, Fantastique Collection organizer Leslie Hernandez says their contract required a “minimum number of guest rooms to be booked in connection with the event.” She says that “requirement was not met,” triggering significant fees on top of existing event expenses that that “greatly exceeded ticket revenue.” Hernandez adds that “payments already made have been retained and applied to the venue contract.”
Coyle hasn’t heard anything more and isn’t sure if she’ll get her ticket refunded.
Authors struggle with book shipping costs
Rena Mangold is one of the authors who planned to attend and sell her books.
“At first, I was shocked that an event of this size could be cancelled weeks before it was supposed to happen,” she said.
Then she thought about the time and money she’s spent to prepare. She’s already shipped books to Dallas and will now have to pay to ship them back.
“As of today I am about out of $1,800,” she said. “I didn’t have any indication ahead of time that this could fall through.”
CBS News Texas asked if she’s heard from the organizer. “They sent an email to me earlier this morning that said I should see the $400 for my table fee rental refunded within 5 days,” she said.
North Texas businesses effort alternative events
While she waits to see what happens, the owner of Talking Animals Books in Grapevine says there’s an effort to find a new event space.
“We were all aware that it was going on,” Katy Lemieux said. “Especially in Grapevine, we were preparing for there to be more fantasy readers in town. We got a message immediately from Folklore Grove, which is an indie bookstore in Arlington, and The Plot Twist in Denton, so those two bookstores kind of mobilized with us.”
Wednesday night, the bookstores that stepped in to help say plans for an alternative event are still being worked out. They’re hosting another meeting Thursday night and hope to have more information for those wanting to attend by Friday.
CBS News Texas reached out to the Fantastique Collection as well as the Gaylord Texan on Wednesday to learn more about the situation. So far, we have not heard back.
Organizers previously postponed another conference
Fantastique Events previously postponed an event in New Jersey back in 2025.
“New Jersey is one of our most expensive events to produce, and we have not sold enough tickets to execute the event without losing close to $150k, let alone to the quality we would want for attendees,” read the post from the same organizers in Dec. 2025. “Rather than diminish the quality or jeopardize the financial well-being of the company, we have decided to take the responsible route of postponing. We greatly appreciate your understanding of this decision…We are happy to inform you that this in no way represents the success of our other events. All other Fantastique Collection events are on track and we look forward to celebrating with you all in the future.”
The New Jersey event was originally expected to take place in January of this year. Based on the social media post by Fantastique Events, the event has been postponed to 2027.
According to Eventbrite’s website, Fantastique Collection is run by Un Jour D’Amour Weddings & Events.
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