Vendors say beer festival still owes them from last year’s event

A server pours a drink at the Edmonton International Beer Festival in an undated photo.

A pair of vendors who claim they’re owed money from the organizers of a city beer festival say they’re bringing attention to their plight so others can avoid it.

Kristoffer Necesito, who owns and operates a Japanese street food truck, and Kris Farmer, who ran two bars at last year’s Edmonton International Beer Festival, say they’re out thousands of dollars after not receiving their portion of ticket revenues for the 2025 event.

Necesito told CTV News Edmonton he spent about $5,000 on food supplies and staffing for his Takopo food truck but didn’t get his “cut” of the revenue: $6,000 plus a promised reimbursement of $1,000 for electricity.

He said Takopo had a contract with the beer festival that said they would receive 60 per cent of the revenue through the ticketing system, the festival 40 per cent.

“We sold our product through tickets, (and) at the end of the day, we submitted all the tickets that had been sold, but we never got our part,” Necesito said.

“We are a small business and (paid) a big chunk of money for that.”

Harvey, who ran the Alfred Bar and the Church of John at the 2025 festival, said he, too, wasn’t paid, saying it’s part of the reason both businesses closed.

“We were looking at close to $15,000 to $20,000, potentially, in revenue that we invested that we didn’t get any return on,” he told CTV News Edmonton, adding he didn’t know of any vendors “out of dozens” getting paid out last year.

Both said they reached out to Sean Farmer, the organizer of the festival, and were told in an email thread “this is going to take an extra two or three weeks” to straighten out, Harvey recalled, but that a month after the event ended, they stopped receiving replies from him.

Farmer, the festival’s founder and director, says it’s not his fault the vendors weren’t paid. He says the issues stem from businesses not having the proper documentation or not communicating with the festival.

“If someone is not receiving a payment for something, that usually means that there’s something that didn’t follow the way it was supposed to and/or we weren’t aware of something, or they were operating outside the confines of what they were registered as,” Farmer told CTV News Edmonton.

Necesito and Harvey say they had all the proper licensing and registration required by last year’s venue.

An email chain between the festival and vendors shows the beer festival had no issues with the service provided and it was waiting on grants to pay back businesses.

Necesito says the process of getting paid has taken too much time and resources and that he’s giving up on it

The festival says it is streamlining communications for this year’s event, which is slated for Churchill Square June 4-9.

CTV News Edmonton has asked for confirmation of which vendors will be there and has yet to hear back.