ne day before the July 2019 kickoff to “Ozy Fest,” a strange amalgam of speeches, panels and entertainment scheduled to be held on arguably the biggest stage in America, Central Park’s Great Lawn, Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson was all smiles: “I’ve heard people describe it as TED meets Coachella,” Watson told the audience on CNBC’s Squawk Box, as he sat across from one of his board members, hedge fund billionaire Marc Lasry, and baseball superstar turned Shark Tank mogul Alex Rodriguez, who...
Those lawyers should have the field day Watson promised for Ozy Fest. What follows is an account of an event that devolved into a financial and logistics nightmare, from wildly-inflated ticket sales to exaggerated celebrity appearances, with a twist ending: the last-minute cancelation that turned what would have publicly exposed Ozy’s untruths into a large insurance windfall.
Quickly, not all appeared to be going as planned. Ozy Fest said it put out more than 500 advertisements promoting the upcoming event — a campaign one knowledgeable observer estimated might cost $2 million. In one of its ads, it ripped a photo from the previous year’s Global Citizen Festival, which boasts 60,000 attendees on the Great Lawn annually, and used it as its own.
Meanwhile, the roster of listed sponsors also felt shaky. Yes, there were blue-chip names like JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial. But there was also the non-profit mental health organization Well Being Trust, which denied tothat they were involved in the festival. Another sponsor: European Wax Center, a hair removal salon chain.