[LEGIT OR NOT] Does Texas have a new Country Music Festival?
A new country music festival is in town… or is it? I recently received a submission for an event titled “Grapevine Music & Arts Festivals.” The listing referenced two different event dates and locations, all in one listing (which is a no-no for our submission process). Ever diligent in this age of event scams, I started my routine event research to see what might be going on. Something felt oddly familiar and unsettling, which always means it is time to pause and dig deeper.
RED FLAG ON THE FIELD
First stop: a search on Facebook. I was able to find the events on social media, but their names seemed to keep changing. Even just these two events seemed to have half a dozen names between “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals” social media and website. Here are a few:
- Southlake-Grapevine Music & Arts Festival
- Coppell Music Festival
- Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals
- Texas Country, Folk & Red Dirt Festivals
- Dallas Country, Folk & Red Dirt Festival at The Sound at Cypress Waters
If you follow DFW Craft Shows, you know I am always on the lookout for red flags when it comes to new events. Unfortunately, social media, Facebook especially, is teeming with event scams. It seems there are a lot folks out there looking to make a quick buck by advertising imaginary events or (fraudulently) posing as event coordinators for legit events. An event with half a dozen names is not only poor marketing, it’s a red flag signaling you to slow down and look closer. After all, what kind of legit business benefits from confusing potential consumers?
If you want help identifying event scam red flags in general, we’ve got a full guide on how to identify event scams and avoid fraud,” with tons of tips and advice to help you do just that. Today we are going to jump in and have a look at this particular event together. I hope it will both help you come to an educated decision regarding these events as well as help you hone your event research skills.
TEXAS FEST VIBES
When I visited the website for the “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals” events, I got a uneasy sense of déjà vu. Why did this website look so familiar? And then I realized: It reminded me of an event back in 2022 called “TexasFest,” put on by The Outlaw / OutlawNation(dot)com.
TexasFest was notoriously known for canceling events last minute, frequently without notice to the vendors. Vendors were rescheduled for future events, only to have those events canceled as well. Some lucky folks received refunds for their booth fees, but many reported that they were never able to get their money back. All vendors were upset to have invested the resources: time, money, and effort, only to be canceled last minute and/or show up only to find no event at all.
If this doesn’t sound familiar or you are newer to events here in Texas, feel free to take a moment and do some research of your own. Grab some popcorn and get ready to journey down an ever shifting rabbit hole of subterfuge and extremely bizarre behavior.
INVESTIGATION
Circling back to the Facebook page for “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals,” I could not help but notice they had a number of different domains for their events, all the same cities in Texas where TexasFest had posted events. None of these domains were actually branded and all seemed generic:
I also noticed that the Facebook page for “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals” had a substantial number of followers. How does that happen with such a new series of events, especially when their oldest past event only dated as far back as 2023? Also why are there ZERO comments on nearly every post “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals” has made? That’s pretty unusual for a social media page with 43K followers.
That’s when I noticed that the page had been created in 2013. Hmm. I decided to test out a hunch.
I remembered that TexasFest was run by The Outlaw / Outlawnation(dot)com, so I pulled up their website. There wasn’t much there other than mentioning that they started in 2013. That’s okay, I was mostly just here to click the link to their Facebook page, which–surprise–loaded up the Facebook page for Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festival. The page has been renamed, but it is still the same account from, you guessed it, 2013.
Searching the posts on “Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festival” Facebook Page for the words “outlaw” resulted in many, many posts with the same logo and promos from the same “parent” company, The Outlaw / Outlawnation(dot)com, all on the same social media feed for these new events. I included the “TexasFest” logo above to illustrate a direct comparison to the extremely similar logo for The Outlaw / Outlawnation(dot)com.
LEGIT OR NOT?
Are the Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals legit? I’ll let you be the judge, but I wanted to put what I found to be compelling evidence in front of you first.
- The Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals seem to go by a variety of names, email addresses, and domains across even their own marketing platforms. All of them are fairly generic, as is event information/details.
- Both the Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals and TexasFest are linked to The Outlaw / Outlawnation(dot)com.
- Searching on the Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals brings up a variety of posts about/from The Outlaw dating back to 2013. Clicking the facebook link on The Outlaw leads you to the facebook page for Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals and TexasFest.
- TexasFest caused a lot of drama and heartache for many vendors and shoppers in 2022 and 2023.
- The names and URLs for The Outlaw social media pages were once rebranded to TexasFest and have now been renamed to Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals.
- All posts mentioning TexasFest have been removed. It seems care is being taken to not associate the two event series with each other. There are little to no comments on any of the more recent posts, despite having a large following on social media.
CONCLUSION
I am putting this information out for vendors and shoppers to review before making a decision regarding this event. Because both events ARE tied to the historical data for the same organization, The Outlaw / OutlawNation(dot)com, I would approach this event with the utmost caution. As with every event, extensive research should be performed before money exchanges hands.
DFW Craft Shows will not be promoting these events or any future events associated with The Outlaw / OutlawNation(dot)com, Texas Fest, or Country, Blues & Red Dirt Music Festivals. I’ll not be holding my breath, but I wouldn’t mind being pleasantly surprised when the event date rolls around.
I hope this post, along with our Guide to Avoiding Event Scams, helps you hone your research skills and leads you toward legit and enjoyable events for your future enjoyment.
Originally posted on September 20, 2024.
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Hi, I'm Tania!
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