I was beyond excited to attend my first large-scale book conference, especially in my hometown of Denver, and as a ‘VIP Influencer’. Unfortunately, my experience of Readers Take Denver is a dystopian tale of poor management, controversy, non-existent communication, shady practices, disrespect, and disappointment. From what I’ve been hearing I had a slightly better time of it as an ‘influencer’ than other attendees, and it was still abysmal.

In case you aren’t familiar, the 2024 Readers Take Denver event was a book conference organized by author Lisa Renee Jones. It took place at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Events Center, out by the Denver airport in April.

COMMUNICATION ISSUES

I’ll admit there were red flags before the conference even began. Instead of having a solid communications plan, bits and pieces of information were dolled out via email, and various Facebook groups, but not kept up-to-date on their website—which should have been their main ‘source of truth’. People received different information, and some didn’t get any at all. I witnessed a few times where the management team at Readers Take Denver sent out conflicting information on the same day. Lisa Renee Jones kept offering to respond to people’s questions by email, but I’ve seen account after account (from authors, influencers, and attendees) that they never received responses to their questions.

I lost count of how many times I saw people innocently asking questions about the event on Facebook only to be met with unnecessarily angry, and defensive, responses from Lisa and her team.

They also conducted multiple Facebook lives as a way of disseminating event information. I’m sorry, but how many of us have hours upon hours to sit and watch videos instead of simply finding the information we need clearly laid out on the event website?

It quickly became apparent that they didn’t communicate with their volunteers either. I witnessed several volunteers and loads of attendees rocking up to the wrong room for a panel because the room had been changed and no one had been notified. Not to mention the lack of information any of the volunteers had at the registration desk. No list of attendees or influencers, no idea who was supposed to get what…it was an absolute mess.

ACCESSIBILITY NOT CONSIDERED

I spoke to a number of people with physical accessibility needs who were treated extremely poorly at the event, and simply not catered for in the planning of Readers Take Denver. Frankly, it was disgusting.

I have some hearing issues, and I personally found it impossible to hear instructions. None of the volunteers had mics or had been told to even walk down the line of people to restate instructions. They simply stood up the front, yelled once, and called it good. I don’t blame the volunteers though, their lack of training was evident.

LINES & NUMBERS

Lisa made so many posts leading up to Readers Take Denver, claiming that they “don’t do lines” and yet, all I did was wait in lines. The registration line on the first day was HOURS long and there weren’t any volunteers going up and down the line making sure people were even in the right place. Pure chaos. It took so long that many people missed the first-night meet-and-greet, despite getting there hours ahead of time. The image below is a screenshot of one of the many posts Lisa Renee Jones made about not having lines at the event.

They devised a complex numbering system to let people into the signing rooms. I’m not an idiot, and neither are the other attendees, but it was extremely difficult to work out where we were meant to be and when. It didn’t help that they let the wrong people into the wrong rooms on Saturday and never even called some people’s numbers at all, leading to whole groups of people missing out on seeing the authors they were there to see. That also meant that some people couldn’t pick up the pre-orders they’d already paid for. At one point I saw a message from the Readers Take Denver team saying that un-collected pre-orders would be sold. Um, excuse me? The orders that had already been paid for would be sold to someone else?

They even started giving out numbers to people on the waitlist for the Rebecca Yarros signing, only to never call those people’s numbers. So much heartbreak. Rebecca was nice enough to reach out to those she could find and meet up with them privately to say hello and sign their books.

LACK OF WATER

I brought several bottles of my own water to the event, and wow am I glad I did. They promised water bottle filling stations, but only saw one (mostly empty) the whole time I was there. Denver is dry y’all, and a mile above sea level, leading to a lot of people getting dehydrated and suffering altitude sickness. Water from the on-site store started at $6 a bottle, which added up quickly considering how hot and dry it was in the venue. Considering they kept hammering home how important it was to hydrate, you would think they would make it possible to actually get water somewhere. The slide below is from a video they posted on Facebook.

MISUSE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Not only did they add authors, attendees, and influencers to WhatsApp groups, so that everyone else in that group instantly had access to your full name and phone number, but I saw posts from authors saying that they were added to Lisa Renee Jones’ personal author email list without their consent. I’ve also heard from other influencers that they were added to Lisa’s email lists and encouraged to promote her books, without prior approval from the influencers.

RISING STAR AUTHORS GOT SCREWED OVER

For starters, who separates out authors into ‘ticketed and Rising Star’ groups? What was the criteria? I saw best-selling authors designated as ‘Rising Star’ and the whole thing just felt icky. Oh, but it gets better, ticketed authors got two signing times with no overlapping panels or events. Rising Stars paid the same amount as the other authors for a single signing session that overlapped with multiple panels and other events.

When the Rising Star authors got to their room to set up it was empty of furniture. Empty! In the end, authors and their assistants had to carry their own tables and chairs from the loading dock and get the room set up, all while people were lining up outside the room to be let in. Appalling, not to mention the likelihood of someone getting injured.

Us readers desperately wanted to support the amazing ‘Rising Star’ authors, and the Readers Take Denver team seemed to do everything they could to make that difficult. Shame on them.

Rising Star authors at Readers Take Denver

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF INFLUENCERS?

I was invited to Readers Take Denver as a VIP influencer (provided I still bought a full-cost ticket—although I was told by another VIP that they had their ticket paid for). As an ‘influencer,’ I was promised early entry into rooms, special swag, and the opportunity to connect with authors for interviews etc.

I did get into signing rooms a few minutes early on Friday, but they had forgotten to tell all of the authors we were coming so a lot of them weren’t even there yet.

As for special swag or anything else that was mentioned, I certainly didn’t get any of it, and neither did the other influencers I spoke to.

DISRESPECT & AGGRESSION

One poor volunteer kept being called their dead name by the event organizers, I saw people get yelled at on several occasions and witnessed an altercation between a volunteer and author's assistant. There was a consistent air of disrespect and Lisa met concerns and complaints with hostility at every turn.

WHERE’S THE MONEY?

I’d love to know what all the money went towards. Sure there are the costs from the event center, but between ticket sales, the authors paying to be there, and most of the event staff being volunteers I’m extremely curious.

I saw videos of the poor volunteers unloading and sorting thousands of boxes, for hours upon hours. Surely they could have hired professionals to do that?

Speaking of professionals, where was event security? Did they not bother to hire any? I saw several people from a separate conference in the Readers Take Denver areas, and with all the pushing, shoving, lines etc I felt incredibly unsafe all weekend.

No food was provided in the cost of the ticket. There were some events that had food, but those cost extra. Even then I heard a lot of people say that by the time they got to the front of the line there wasn’t any food left, despite having paid extra for the privilege of eating. Note: I’ve attended much less expensive conferences that at least provided lunch, snacks, tea, coffee, and water.

Apparently, there were over 3,000 attendees, so ticket sales would have been over $900k. That doesn’t include the money that authors paid to have tables and attend the event.

In case you’re interested, I tallied up my personal costs to attend Readers Take Denver. I live in-state so was able to drive, and it still cost me over $2,300 to attend. Imagine adding flights to that price, plus shipping books home. And yet we received the absolute bare minimum from the event organizers.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Since the tea was spilled all over the internet I’ve seen messages from Lisa throwing Rebecca Yarros under the bus (Rebecca and her assistants had the most well-run signing portion of the whole event and were professional and kind), and the event center (who were only following the instructions they were given…or not given in this case, by Lisa and her team). What I haven’t seen is Lisa apologize or take accountability for this disaster of an event. Instead, she’s tried to gaslight us all by saying how smoothly things ran on Friday, and downplaying all the issues, calling them a few ‘bumpy bumps’.

THE HITS JUST KEEP COMING

There are so many other things I haven’t even touched on, like the men from a separate conference who snuck into one of the evening events and apparently assaulted someone. Or the author that spent a load of money to send cookies with a QR code to her book, to be provided in attendee bags. Spoiler, the cookies never made it into the bags but were instead handed out to authors and narrators to nosh on. I heard several other authors say they provided books and swag for attendee bags that also never made it into readers’ hands…still not sure where all of that went. Oh, and did I mention that Lisa asked authors and influencers to donate goods and services to raise money for her own charity? The list just goes on, and on. If you’d like to hear other people’s accounts, and fully embrace the controversy, check out Threads.

THE PROS

Ok, now that all the tea has been spilt, let’s talk about the pros.

The book friends. It was so amazing to catch up with people I’ve only ever spoken to in Zooms and Instagram DMs. Honestly, I could have caught up with them anywhere, but the event did bring us together (did we just trauma bond?) so I’ll take that as a win. If it hadn’t been for them I probably would have left after the first day.

And the authors…all but a handful were so sweet, and went out of their way to make sure readers could meet them and have their books signed, even when the event organizers were telling them to get out of rooms and turning the lights off on them while they were trying to pack up. I applaud so many of them for speaking up and pulling out of next year’s event out of outrage for how readers, themselves, and their fellow authors were treated. You are wonderful, and I’m so glad I get to support you as a reader. I also met so many new-to-me authors that I can’t wait to read. Here’s to seeing you sometime soon, at a better-run event elsewhere!