Mars still awaiting online ticket proceeds from Brew Fest
MARS — The borough is still waiting to receive $25,000 in proceeds from online ticket sales from the 2022 Mars Brew Fest. The funds are owed to the borough by online ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets.
The Seattle-based ticketing company, which has handled online ticket sales for the Brew Fest for the past three years, is currently under scrutiny for owing money to a number of events across the country, Mars mayor Gregg Hartung said.
Hartung said the borough has contacted Brown Paper Tickets multiple times, and is currently working with the state Attorney General’s office in Washington State to discuss options for receiving the funds. The borough has also filed with the Federal Trade Commission.
The borough first realized there was an issue when funds were not delivered to the borough’s bank account two weeks after the Brewfest in June 2022.
“We kept trying to call them and contact them but kept getting the runaround, and then we went online and saw that they had done this to other events across the country,” Hartung said. “They were apparently robbing Peter to pay Paul during COVID, and now they’re really up against the wall.”
Hartung said the Washington attorney general’s office hopes to come to an arrangement with Brown Paper Tickets to pay back what it owes to the borough and other event organizers without a lawsuit.
“I think the state of Washington is trying to hold that off until they can see if the company can actually rebound,” he said. “They have a few folks like us who are kind of pushing them, but we don’t want to push them so hard that we push it into bankruptcy, because then, we’re probably not going to get anything.”
The $25,000 made up a little more than half of the total proceeds from the Brew Fest, Hartung added. The rest of the proceeds came from in-person sales, which were not affected.
Funds from the Brew Fest benefit the borough’s Mars New Year celebration, held every two years to celebrate the new year on the planet Mars and promote STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math).
“It all goes towards the next Mars New Year, in terms of being able to make it happen, so that we have money to start out with, vs. having to start out from zero,” Hartung said.
Mars New Year and Mars Borough plan to work together to find potential sources of additional funding to make up for the missing funds, Hartung added.
“We’re working on ramping up additional funding and doing what we need to do, so we’re able to have the next Mars New Year without this being an issue, even though it is right now,” he said.
