San Diego-Based Blended Festival Falls Apart After String Of Cancellations And Founder’s Alleged Absconsion

November 2, 2022

San Diego-based Blended Music & Wine Festival is being compared to the infamous Fyre Festival after several installments were abruptly cancelled and the founder has allegedly absconded, leaving ticket holders and his own team in the dark.
Blended Festival was founded by My Wine Society, a San Diego-based social media app that launched in 2018 with a mission to unite wine enthusiasts and guide users to top wine destinations around the country. The company’s inaugural Blended wine and live music festival took place in downtown San Diego’s Waterfront Park in August 2019. After a positive initial event, My Wine Society planned to expand the festival to Chicago and Baja’s Valle de Guadalupe in 2020, but those events were ultimately canceled due to the pandemic. In 2021, Blended Festival hosted incarnations in San Diego, Nashville, TN, and Austin, TX. In 2022, Blended Festivals were scheduled to take place in Nashville, San Diego, Austin and Tampa. 

Blended Festival took place in Nashville on September 10-11, 2022, but there was apparently a storm during the event that caused a mass evacuation and subsequent cancellation of the remainder of the festivities. There are allegations that the reason for the cancellation was actually an abrupt cancellation by headliners The Chainsmokers and that the storm actually passed rather quickly. This Nashville cancellation resulted in a “ripple effect” fallout that the organization could not overcome, resulting in last minute cancellations of Austin, then San Diego, and finally Tampa. 

On November 2, a social media post on Blended Festival’s Facebook and Instagram pages, with the headline “Status update”, resulted in a multitude of allegations and grievances against the company’s founder Robert Sean Evans, age 37. 

“To valued ticket holders,” began the post to Blended Festival’s social media channels. “It is important that you are informed of the status of Blended Festival, Inc. Sean Evans, CEO of My Wine Society (MWS) parent company of Blended Festival INC, has been absent as of October 1st. He disabled staff email accounts and left the team with no answers to be found. Unfortunately, it appears that Evans is the sole owner of MWS and Blended Fest, and the sole individual with access to bank accounts, payroll, ticketing, and decisions to be made on behalf of Blended.”

“In his abrupt absence and failure to provide answers, it can only be assumed the festivals are not moving forward,” continued the announcement on a second slide. “The social media however, remains in the hands of a 3rd party. Morally, we cannot continue to stand by, and leave ticket holders in the dark. Here are some answers we can provide: Blended Festival is hereby dissolved, as per an email statement from Sean Evans to select staff. For those looking to get in touch with Sean Evans directly for resolution, we have included his contact information on the last slice, along with his attorney’s information.”

In comments on the social posts and within correspondences with SanDiegoVille, multiple allegations against Evans surfaced, from him ghosting staff and failing to pay vendors, to accusations that funds were embezzled during Evans’ time as a cheerleading coach. There were also many comments comparing the event to the now-notorious Fyre Festival, the 2017 failed Bahamas-based festival that was the focus of two popular documentaries. Many ticket holders also complained about the lack of communication with regard to refunds for tickets purchased to cancelled 2022 events. 

According to an article published by Medium.com, Sean Evans “founded and exited four companies over the last 20 years” and My Wine Society received a $16 million valuation in 2019. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Evans acquired Gloves.com and became a leading supplier of PPE equipment like masks and gloves to the medical industry. 
We reached out to Robert Sean Evans and his attorney for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publishing. Mr. Evans has since deleted his LinkedIn account and seemingly deactivated his personal social media channels. Anyone with further information about Blended Festival or its executives is asked to email [email protected]

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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