EUREKA, Mo. — The Missouri Attorney General's Office is looking to get ahold of hundreds of people who are owed settlement money after buying tickets to an event that never happened.
In 2018, 2,393 people purchased tickets to an event in Eureka called Lantern Fest, for a total of $231,000. Bad weather postponed the event twice in November and it was rescheduled for June 2019. But organizers went silent, and the event never happened. Happy Fun Events, the company that put on the event, never refunded people their money.
After more than two years of litigation, a settlement was reached in April 2022, requiring the defendants to pay full restitution to ticket purchasers. The attorney general's office reached out to 5 On Your Side in hopes of getting the word out about the settlement money.
"In our investigation we were able to get the names and email addresses for the 2,393 ticket purchasers, but did not get mailing addresses which my office needs in order to send them their refund checks," said Assistant Attorney General Michelle Hinkl.
Over the past two months, the office has sent three emails to each email address, asking for their mailing address. It has received a response from about two-thirds of the victims, but is still missing around 850 people. That's about $90,000 in settlement money that has still not gone to its rightful owners.
The emails come from LanternFestSettlement@ago.mo.gov and include a link to a survey where people can fill out their mailing address.
This is what the email will look like:
In 2021, Brookdale Farms in Eureka sounded the alarm to customers about another lantern festival, which was falsely claiming online that it would be taking place at the farm.
