Company behind ‘Jingle!’ holiday event hires bankruptcy lawyer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - The beleaguered limited liability company associated with holiday light displays in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas this week hired a bankruptcy attorney to try to find assets to pay people who worked the event.
KCTV5 has previously reported that Jingle! at Legends Field disappointed customers and failed to pay the Monarchs, who were renting the field to the company.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Jingle! Holiday experience in Kansas City leaves some less than jolly
Jeff Wagoner, President of WM Law, confirmed Friday that Epic Holiday LLC hired the firm to assist with the unpaid staff and other creditors owed money, including entertainers, laborers and stagehands who were hired on a contract basis.
Wagoner said a bankruptcy claim has not yet been filed.
“The owners of the company feel horrible about what’s happened and they are doing their best they can to scratch together what they can to get the payroll met,” Wagoner said.
Vendors speak out
Joseph Straws, III is among those who say they were stiffed.
“This is like Kansas City’s Fyre Festival,” he said.
Straws was hired to DJ at the Kansas City pop-up display and hired to build the set in both Kansas City and O’Fallon, a suburb of St. Louis. He said the company didn’t commit to his services until the week before the Thanksgiving weekend opening.
He rushed to St. Louis to get the O’Fallon stage set up, then back to Kansas City to get the stage done there. In the rush, he failed to get a deposit. Then, he said, the company canceled his final week of DJ gigs. He asked about being paid and said he was told there was no money to do that.
“I’m thinking, ‘Okay, well maybe you don’t have it right now, but you’re gonna have it like next week, when you settle everything,’” Straws said. “And it was like, ‘No, we just don’t have the money.’”
He said he is owed nearly $20,000.
Straws said he has an established business and will be able to get by. His worry is for the laborers and entertainers who count on holiday season gigs to keep them afloat through what is typically a slow time in the winter months.
“This was supposed to tide a lot of people over until the snow melts and everybody’s back outside and right now they’re in the hole,” Straws said. “Everybody is not in the position that we’re in where, yeah this hurts and it makes you downright angry, but I still get to go home. I’ve got heat. I’ve got a car. We still get to operate. But there’s people that live check to check.”
The Kansas City Monarchs have said they too have not been paid for the rental of Legends Field.
Jingle! Kansas City opened Thanksgiving weekend, promoted as last season’s Enchant with added fun features. But faster than you could say “FaLaLa,” customers made a stink about not getting what they expected. The d skating trail was three weeks late during an already short season.
What went wrong?
The LLC that ran the event — Epic Holiday — is owned by Mark McKee, the former CEO of the Monarchs. An LLC protects personal assets and has few to no physical assets to liquidate.
Wagoner said one option being considered to find assets would be to make a claim against the company that was late in delivering the skating trail. A PR firm hired by Jingle! Kansas City previously blamed the shipping delay on a dockworker strike.
Straws is sympathetic to McKee, whom he said he has been communicating with directly.
“His heart was in the right place,” Straws said. “In his mind, he’s bringing holiday cheer, but you’ve got to take care of the intangibles. You’ve got to take care of the business. You have to walk in with the plan and enough money to pay your essentials.”
“I’m not saying Mark is a bad person. I’m just saying he didn’t have a really good contingency plan.”
Asked if McKee would be willing to dip into his personal funds to make people whole, Wagoner did not give a direct answer but asserted that he has handled many business failures, and this one stands out.
“Mark is doing absolutely everything that he can to rectify this situation, and he has gone above and beyond what I normally see our small business owners do. I can only tell you that this has been financially disastrous for him and he’s gone above and beyond to try to make this right.”
Wagoner said direct employees should anticipate being paid by the end of this month. He could not provide any timeline or certainty for creditors, which includes all the entertainers and set workers. He encouraged anyone with a claim to email [email protected].
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