Yesterday, Furnace Fest managing partner Johnny Grimes announced that ongoing financial issues forced the sale of the Atlanta-based festival to an outside production company. As a result, he revealed that he\u2019d no longer be involved with Furnace Fest.<\/p>\n
Following that announcement, well-established concert and festival promoter Mike Ziemer blasted the sale on social media, alleging that things had gotten so bad financially for the fest because of the failures of two of the four partners involved. And one of them was Grimes himself.<\/p>\n
Ever since the festival was brought back in 2020, the partnership that ran things was Ziemer, Grimes, Ryan Luther, and Furnace Fest founder Chad Johnson. Things were apparently going well for the first couple of years, but things came to a head financially in 2025. Lower than expected ticket sales bit into the festival\u2019s revenue streams, resulting in the festival operating in the red and generating a large amount of debt. Those issues eventually led to some artists not getting their guarantees.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted on social media today, Ziemer issued a statement blasting the sale:<\/p>\n
\u201cMyself and Ryan Luther were lied to, gaslit, and left off the team after 2024, the year we were told was the last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cRyan and I handled all booking for 2021-2024, I ran all marketing and paid ads for 2021-2024 along with media team and many other tasks, and between us we did most of the on-site coordination. Also, the ticketing company and most major sponsors were my relationships. The remaining two partners got greedy and felt they could do it without us in 2025 despite telling us over and over the fest couldn\u2019t sustain a profit outside of year 1 and 2.ssssss<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept my mouth shut because I was promised a buy out that never came. Another lie. Ryan and I\u2019s buyouts are not included in the bankruptcy and we are just shit out of luck for everything we built and get to watch it all go down in flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much for caring about brotherhood and community, just another shining example of Christian hypocrisy that turns so many people away from religion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise that this will never be the Furnace Fest you all know and love without myself and Ryan being a part of it. It took 4 of us to make this what was so special, but only 2 people to destroy it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot more to say\u2026 but that\u2019s for later.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Later on, Ziemer revealed on Instagram that he wasn\u2019t done organizing other festivals, announcing that he\u2019s looking to bring So What?! Music Festival back from the dead as soon as next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I have finally been able to speak my peace on that other festival, I am ready to fully move forward and return my focus to putting together a dream team of partners for so what?! Music festival to make a return (tentatively) in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have full confidence that I will be able to bring the right people together to not only bring the festival back, but make sure it stays back for good.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are already happening behind the scenes, but if anyone else is interested in getting involved, speak now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what this festival means to so many people around the world and I\u2019m ready to relaunch it, even if we scale it down first to build it back up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Something tells me this whole situation isn\u2019t over yet. If more comes out, we\u2019ll post an update.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday, Furnace Fest managing partner Johnny Grimes announced that ongoing financial issues forced the sale of the Atlanta-based…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,211296,216],"class_list":["post-450307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-furnace-fest","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}