Firstly, no worries about asking questions. I'm a friendly chap and I'm writing this with a warm smile on my face. I promise it's not my first rodeo!

So...


Sorry, the exact setup is a secret. "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you!" (Bri will know shortly. It's quite a simple setup)


I have already purchased all the mess required by category.


SO, it's not as ideal as I'd hoped but like the Dunkirk spirit, "we shall overcome". TL;DR - we have a camping shower on stage (complete with privacy tent); towels will be provided but feel free to bring your own.

As one person will be getting messy every ~5mins you'll have time to clean up in there. (Some messes will just require a quick wipe with a towel)


Don't worry! I got ya, bro!

ah cool mate thx .. best way forward .

Just realised I missed this in the thread: Thanks Rod! Shame you can't make! We'll have some fun on your behalf!

*sigh* There's always one, isn't there...

You're very welcome to vote at Messtival, even if you're not attending the event. Voting 5 times however is not in the spirit of the game and we'll filter you out!

Right, now back to happy, excited bounce-mode!

This seems so incredible - I'm gutted that I'm still too unwell to attend, I've long wanted to do something similar, the closest I got was having ten people over to do the messy harlem shake video about a million years ago lol

Anyway, my votes are in!

Good luck everyone, you're all freakin amazing. Have a great time for me and tell me all the stories afterward!

CAAAAANNNDDDDYYYY!!!!! Nice to hear from you! (I do remember your Harlem Shake vid!)

Well, we're gutted you're not going to make it. I"m sure we all hope your health improves so we can have you around more. Thank you for voting and we will raise a glass (or a pie) in your honour!

Take care Candy! See you soon...

Thank you so much! Raise both please!

Ahhh good luck again everyone... how exciting!

Gutted you can't be there, Wishing you better real soon

That messy harlem shake video brings back memories i remember being there for that. I would love to be part of something like that again. Hope you Feel better soon. Sending Hugs to you.

We'll try! It's good to hear from you in any event, I do hope you feel better soon! You're an absolute legend !

Jim, I will need to see those receipts, at your earliest convenience.
Preferably publicly here on the thread, for full transparency.
But DM will work if it contains things that you feel would need to be censored from public view.

Have Dm'd you.

Post from Penny today:

"Hi everyone, I would like to second this statement by my Messtival co-founder. I became aware of this event last night. None of the team gave permission for our branding to be used and we are in discussions to propose a suitable resolution to the organiser. Thank you."

Mate needs to tell the truth and show what you have in public . Trust in important. In this industry and community

Just to chime in, events have never been exclusive to one member / producer etc.

We organised a number of meets / Splunches like the London Meet, Birmingham meet etc as well as putting on "after party" events with the Dunk Tank. Others in the community at the time took it upon themselves to hijack some of these events, advertising outside of the community drawing other niches in however the events took place in the same way. Just becomes somebody has picked up where somebody else has left off should not be an issue. Unless those involved in Mestival were only doing it for commercial reasons then it shouldn't be an issue. Looking at the event it's cost a fair bit to put on so can't see it being for commercial reasons. Sadly we were asked to provide a Gunge Tank however it wasn't something we were keen to do.

Oh dear I fear another UMD drama is unfolding!

What's happened have I missed something?

Whilst I agree that there is no reason why anyone can't arrange and host an awards ceremony for the community I think the wider issue here is the lack of transparency- something which is paramount in the community for obvious reasons.

If the event has not been discussed with Penny (inferred by her tweet today) or SlipperySkin (implied by their response here and various statements on other platforms) then this event should not have been advertised as Messtival and approved by Penny. It has been advertised and promoted under false pretences and that is not OK.

It would be a shame if there is no event for the community, however I do feel like there are answers which need to be given and (pardon the pun) people need to come clean and own their mistakes. If this had been promoted as its own event under a different brand I am sure responses would have been much lower and people would have been more skeptical

Hopefully not. It just seems like a misunderstanding currently. There was no reason for Jim to specifically say he had permission from Penny, and specifically call his event the Messtival unless he believed he had permission.

Otherwise why not just call it the Jimbos, or the Sploshees or whatever. To specifically say, to a community of people who know Penny and chat with Penny, "I have permission from Penny" only makes sense if you believe you have permission. As GTB alludes to...none of us hold the copyright on holding an awards ceremony, so if Jim didn't think he had permission, then to act in this way (saying he had permission & calling it Messtival, rather than running his own event) makes no sense.

Equally, from the posts cited above, clearly Penny (and her team) weren't of the same understanding, and of course that is a real concern. However currently we are told they are DMing privately and talking it through which is a grown up adult way of sorting things out.

It's probably a forlorn hope, but perhaps we could just allow them to discuss and resolve the situation privately, without everybody wildly speculating, or demanding that everyone be allowed to see private correspondence etc.

It would be nice to hope we could have one nice thing without ruining it for ourselves.

I really hope and pray that Jim and Penny and her team are able to resolve any disagreement and we can all look forward to the event, without any need for speculation. I am sure the parties involved will update us when everything is resolved....and in the event that things aren't resolved, we'll have plenty of time for pile-ons, recrimination and blaming then. For now, I choose to hope that an amicable resolution can be found, that everyone is happy with.

Whilst I agree that private messages don't necessarily need to be aired, I feel that as a community we should be given Jim's side of the story as both Penny and SlipperySkin have very publicly rebutted the fact that this year's event has not been discussed with or approved by them. I suspect there may be a way for the event to still go ahead under alternative branding etc as obviously nobody holds exclusivity over the right to hold such an event. However, I would suggest that event organisers must be transparent when advertising events as being approved by/blessed by certain individuals and also should be held accountable when false claims are made.
As a community we deserve better than this. Those who have volunteered to help/host deserve better than this.
I am sure we will hear more in due course and I hope that this is sooner rather than later.

Agree with this. People are booking hotels, trains etc and maybe even buying outfits for this event yet since Thursday the whole thing seems to be in question, or at least the event in its originally published guise.

You are also right in that we deserve to hear Jim's side of this. I appreciate that conversations are going on behind the scenes but it's been a couple of days now so I think some kind of update would be appropriate.

I have booked tickets but I am now questioning whether or not to come. Think it all comes down to trust in the organiser and everything being transparent for everyone.

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the delay. I'm away at the moment for a wedding: #timing.

I want to clarify the situation and offer an apology for the confusion and rectify the issue.

A full statement, including receipts, is available here (because x-posting and formatting): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tlDO5lpbEwvaSKyBRjs1JVmcP5Ttp5yYz7D78GRTSgg/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks


Jim

Okay, so in summary, if I'm reading this right: you messed up quite badly and forgot you had asked to run a *similar* event but you said you'd change the name. Mm, I thought there would have to have been some sort of misunderstanding somewhere, and it makes sense that's where it was. Okay.

And it'll go ahead but you'll be changing the name of the event, because you don't want to offend anyone. Makes sense.

- What will it be called now?
- Do we start a new thread for that?
- Will already existing tickets be honoured?

In summary, this is what I am taking from it too. Although I am very confused how a very explicit "not using the branding but something akin to it" led to a full-blown "I'm using your name and saying I have your blessing".

I have a lot of other questions which I would love to have answered, particularly around the REAL reason this event is being scheduled. Given we have been lied to already, I can only assume this is to get closer to other members of the community and to benefit the few rather than the many.

Yes, the event is free. BUT we have been lied to and deceived. Is this really the sort of person who should be hosting such an event? Most of the proof in their statement is redacted to fit their version of the truth.

Whilst it is great to have a community event however we have already been lied to at least once by the organisers. I would love to see the event go ahead but I feel the community deserve for this to be hosted by someone who is more open, more honest and more trustworthy.

I'm a little confused if you asked Penny in May, why you have a random screenshot from the 19th July? Why did you take that screenshot, and why did you not check again about the name? Once is a mistake, twice seems reckless at best.

For such a small niche community the name shouldn't come into this. Jim has taken on a huge event to organise and all he is getting is grief. This must have cost an absolute fortune to put on let alone the stress.

As I alluded to earlier others took on the Splunch Meets etc without "consent". Some even wanted to turn the legendary London meet into a general fetish meet.

The community is too small to get worried about this unless those running other events were doing so as a business and not "into" the niche as such. Having been on the scene for well over 20 years in various guises I've seen many models and producers come and go thinking they can make a fast buck. The reality is those still here and having been here for some time do it for the love of the fetish / niche.

For the sake of keeping this event going in the whatever name it is let's move on. Call it Sploshtival, the Sploshies, the Wamies or something but to have something that recognises the work of producers, many of whom run at a loss , can only be a good thing.

Once again , apologies we couldn't bring the Gunge Tank but we are kind of out of things so far now we didn't thing it right.

On another note Jim, given we have around 400kg of both gunge powder and paint to get rid of I'm happy to donate some gunge and paint for you although this won't be in fancy bags, you'd need to add the powder paint to the gunge and measure it out etc.

Thx for update and yes we all make mistake in life not perfect in anyway nor is anyone ele.

Feel big mistakes and we took your word you ask and got permission having different name would be so big oh knows. If come forward with error months ago would be better.

Going forward feel yes should happen but you step down running it and we group uptogether

I lost mum 5 month to brain toumor and understand street cause you . Talk people know me

Step down . Running it and group up and run it together

Sorry, but you are too far removed from this to take this position. I have spoken with Penny and there is a LOT more to this situation than what Jim has posted in his statement. I believe he has 24 hours to amend his statement to reflect the whole truth or all of the information will be released in Penny and SlipperySkin's joint statement.
Bottom line is - Jim has not shown the integrity or respect that is so important within any fetish community.
I totally agree that the event should go ahead - but it should not be managed by Jim and co given we continue to be lied to and misled.