Pitchfork Festival Sues Co-Founder Over Missing Money

The company behind the now-cancelled Pitchfork Music Festival is suing its co-founder, claiming he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars after the festival ended in 2024.

According to a lawsuit filed by Pitchfork Festivals LLC in federal court in Illinois, co-founder Mike Reed kept $564,680, claiming they were for expenses he’d incurred for the ultimately cancelled 2025 edition of the festival, and that transferred that money to another entity he controls.

Reed’s company Big Stik began a contract with Pitchfork in 2019 to provide certain services to the festival, including the maintenance of a bank account.

Pitchfork advanced $3,970,180 to Big Stik for the 2024 festival and while the parties had agreed to continue working together for 2025, no scope-of-work agreement had been signed by the time Conde Nast, Pitchfork’s parent company, made the decision there’d not be a 2025 edition after all.

Reed was informed of that decision on Nov. 11, 2024, and was asked to return the money in the account on Jan. 8. Instead, according to the suit, he filed a “Wind Down Settlement Report,” writing “the remaining monies are incurred and attributed to the canceled 2025 event and the wind-down of all operations.” But, according to the complaint, “a large portion” of the costs had not yet been incurred and Reed is accused of falsely attributing $565,680 to expenses related to labor, production and cancellation fees, storage, legal services, accounting and taxes, which was the exact balance remaining in the account.

According to the suit, Reed then transferred that money into an account controlled by another LLC associated with him.

In a statement to Block Club Chicago, Reed said “Refunds, vendor obligations, tax filings, and records — those duties don’t vanish overnight. When Condé Nast, a global media conglomerate, gave us about 90 minutes’ notice that it was ending the Chicago festival, months of work remained to responsibly wrap up the 2024 event, and planning for 2025 — with its own costs and obligations — was already underway.”

Judge Martha Pacold of the Northern District of Illinois set a status conference for Aug. 12.