Beauty and the Beast themed drink experience no fairytale, customers say
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - It was supposed to be a girl’s night out, a handful of women from Buffalo on an adventure in downtown Minneapolis.
But their immersive fairytale experience turned out to be more of a nightmare.
"I felt stupid because I like to pride myself that I'm a reasonably educated woman and I wouldn't fall for something like this," Tracy Hagstrom Durant told FOX 9.
She and her friends paid nearly $50 each for tickets to the Beauty and the Beast Cocktail Experience.
On a Facebook page promoting the event, there's a video featuring actors dressed in Victorian costumes, which participants were encouraged to do as well.
The ticket website said the pop-up was supposed to be at O'Donovan's Irish Pub, but when the women arrived at the bar on Thursday night, there was no event to be found.
"I thought we had the wrong location. I was going back to the website. I was like, do we have the wrong day, the wrong time? I was like, something's wrong, something's wrong," Lisa McLaren said.
In all, about two dozen people showed up at the bar for a pop-up that bar employees knew nothing about.
What's worse, tickets are still being sold for more Beauty and the Beast cocktail parties at O'Donovan's through mid-August, including some family-friendly events.
"It was really unfortunate that that happened. A lot of people came in from out of town, buying hotel rooms, taking the time out of their day to find out that the tickets were a scam," said O'Donovan's bar manager, Yasmin Khan.
FOX 9 reached out to the company apparently behind the event, Viral Ventures, but did not get a response.
In the meantime, McLaren and her friends hope the same thing doesn't happen to anyone else.
"It's not fair. I'm glad it happened to us. At least we were able to pivot and learn from it," said McLaren.
Employees at O'Donovan's suggest that if you buy tickets to a pop-up event online, call the venue associated with it ahead of time to make sure it's really happening.