Pitchfork Festivals LLC is suing the co-founder of its namesake festival, alleging he misappropriated and pocketed some $564,000 in outstanding event funding after the festival shuttered in 2024.
In a complaint filed Monday in federal court in Chicago, the company accuses Michael Reed of orchestrating a “deliberate scheme” to keep the more than half a million dollars in festival funds by falsely claiming the total accounted for costs he’d accrued in anticipation of Pitchfork Music Festival 2025 before it was canceled.
The suit, first reported by Block Club Chicago, seeks to recover the misappropriated funds alongside compensatory and punitive damages for “willful and intentional misconduct,” the 24-page filing states.
Pitchfork shuttered after its 19th installation in 2024. The festival had been held annually in Union Park since 2006, barring a year off in 2020 due to the pandemic. The event was born out of an inaugural summer fete known as the 2005 Intonation Music Festival, curated by Pitchfork Media.
The three-day music festival has been known for its mix of alternative and indie rock, hip hop and electronic music; it catered to a festival-going demographic older than the larger annual Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park. It had a daily capacity of about 20,000 in Union Park, with music on three stages.
The event had been produced by its namesake music publication. In early 2024, Condé Nast — the owner of the music publication — folded the Pitchfork title into GQ, another magazine it held. Though the music festival continued the following summer, some Pitchfork staffers lost their jobs. Pitchfork, the publication, was sold to Condé Nast in 2015.
At the core of Pitchfork Festivals’ complaint is allegations that Reed employed corporate entities that he alone owns and controls to keep event funding for his own benefit. The corporate entities in question include Big Stik LLC, an event company that contracted with Pitchfork to produce the festival, and At Pluto LTD.
In 2019, Big Stik entered into an agreement with Pitchfork to provide production services for the festival, the complaint states. Through the parties’ relationship, Pitchfork advanced funds to Big Stik for the sole purpose of approved festival expenses, per filings.
Ahead of its 2024 festival, Pitchfork advanced more than $3.9 million to Big Stik for what, ultimately, became the final edition of the event, according to the complaint. Per its services agreement with Pitchfork, Big Stik was to return any remaining funds in the event budget after the 2024 festival in a timely manner.
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In the fall of 2024, Pitchfork told Big Stik and Reed personally that the festival would not be moving forward the next year, the complaint states. A couple of months later, the finance director for Condé Nast discovered that more than $560,000 of Pitchfork’s festival advance to Big Stik was unaccounted for.
The director subsequently asked Reed for clarification and requested that he return the missing funds, the complaint states. The next day, he sent the director a “Wind Down Settlement Report” that maintained Condé Nast had told them to proceed with the 2025 festival, so they had started advance operations for the event. The report went on to itemize advance expenses allegedly incurred.
In its complaint, Pitchfork alleges that the reported costs were “reverse engineered to consume the precise balance” that it had been seeking to recover from Reed. Pitchfork further argues that — in the weeks after the 2024 festival, when Condé Nast still intended to keep the event going — Reed did not submit any budget or expense requests in connection with the 2025 festival.
Reed did not stop at misrepresentation, the complaint alleges. The lawsuit goes on to accuse Reed of silently transferring the disputed funds out of Big Stik’s event account and into the operations account of At Pluto, which Reed has sole control over. Pitchfork also only learned about the “concealed transfer” through proceedings in a related arbitration case, the complaint states.
Pitchfork cites Reed and At Pluto on several counts of alleged wrongdoing, including for fraudulent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.
A magistrate judge has asked that parties file an initial joint status report by Aug. 12.
An attorney representing Pitchfork Festivals in the case and Condé Nast did not return requests for comment Friday night.
In a statement to the Tribune on Saturday, Reed claimed that Condé Nast had given his team “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.”
He said his dispute with the publishing giant is currently in arbitration and that he had followed the arbitration procedure, which included producing documents, sitting for depositions and preparing for an upcoming hearing.
“But instead of letting that agreed process reach a conclusion, Condé Nast has now launched last‑minute, parallel litigation that looks like an end‑around designed to increase pressure rather than to fairly resolve what is, at bottom, a dispute about how to share the real costs of winding down a long‑running festival partnership,” Reed said in his statement. He added, “We categorically deny any wrongdoing and look forward to bringing this matter to a favorable resolution.”
Last year, in the wake of Pitchfork Music Festival’s cancellation, Reed staged a new music festival called Sound & Gravity through a music venue, Constellation, which he owns in town. Ahead of the event’s fall debut, Reed spoke with the Tribune.
“I see the cyclical nature of the concert industry,” Reed said last September, speaking to Pitchfork’s demise. “I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, all right, we need to do something to build reserves — not just get our heads above water, but maybe our torso, too.”
According to Constellation’s website, Sound & Gravity is scheduled to take place again this fall.
baiduhai’s Doug George contributed.