In Wednesday’s vlog, we reported that John Hebard from Hebard’s Travel and most notably, the RV Nomad Movie (which we also reviewed), announced that he and his wife would be departing the ENTV family. At the time, all that was released was that it was to focus more time on their travels and so that John could focus on a book he has been working on.
Last night, rumblings on the ENTV / Epic Nomad boards about financial issues within the ENTV leadership started to run rampant.
The official word…
This morning, a post to ENTV boards as well as an email to members confirmed the rumors:
We are incredibly sad to hear this news. We were among the many hundreds (if not thousands) of people that had already signed up to attend NomadFest in October this year.
How EPIC Nomad / ENTV handles the returns for the people that have paid remains to be seen, but as they noted in their communication above, we should know something by Monday.
Can it be saved?
Its understandable that they felt compelled to put together another movie to release during NomadFest. The financial frustration to complete this monumental task. Could they look at the success of events like RTR and realize its not about the glitzy movie? Get back to the heart of why people are drawn to the RV lifestyle and we would all still gather. Could they not still proceed with the event with a different event schedule?
We’ll keep you posted any further developments…
Safe travels,
Russ & Kerry
Update: 02/16/19
In an email to followers, Eric Odom from ENTV continues the conversation and gives a glimpse of hope. He states there might still be time to salvage the app – and perhaps NomadFest? He mentions people have offered to help (financially). Let’s see what this community can do!
Update: 02/19/19
Following his email on Saturday, Eric Odom released another update. There are ongoing efforts to try to make NomadFest 2019 happen! The remaining leaders of ENTV (Morton’s on the Move also announced their withdrawal last week in addition to Hebard’s Travels) have been in talks with the city of Wellington and have promised an update by Wednesday or Thursday later this week. Here is the text from the most recent communication:
NomadFEST Guests,
On Friday we announced significant changes to NomadFEST 2019 and have been working all weekend on getting ready to begin working with you all on next steps. As mentioned in Friday’s announcement, it’s likely that NomadFEST will be fully cancelled. And in the event of a cancellation we will begin phasing in refunds for NomadFEST 2019 guests.
Is it possible NomadFEST is still going to happen? Yes. And if it does it will be much bigger than we had planned. With a lot more support and infrastructure. And far more speakers than ever before.
This is a big if. You see, the outpouring of support we received Friday evening and throughout the weekend was rather profound on many levels. We’ve had multiple entities offer to come in and help keep it all on schedule. There are hundreds of nomads out there who don’t want to see it cancelled and this is encouraging beyond words!
We’re in discussions with a lot of folks right now, including the city of Wellington and with today being a holiday it was difficult to reach full resolution. We’re going back into the negotiations tomorrow and Wednesday and will let you all know where things stand in a few days.
Like many of you we too want to save the event! But we want it to be done right and we want it to be EPIC! If we can’t do this we will begin the refund process.
Thank you for the tremendous support. Thank you for being patient as we work through this and stay tuned for updates!
– The NomadFEST Crew
UPDATE 3.13.19
Check out our VLOG 87 for the latest update: https://theroadsweroam.com/2019/03/13/news-03-13-19/
It came in at 8:44pm last night. Check your email for a message from entv@epicnomadtv.com. We are so excited to hear this and hope they can make it work!
When did you get notice to wait a few more days? I got an email on Saturday to stay tuned until Monday for ticket refund updates but have not gotten anything further.
We attended last year and we’re pretty excited for this year.
Agreed. I just posted on there too so people will know-maybe there is still time to salvage something and make NomadFest happen!
This indeed is sad news. We have to band together to keep the Dream alive. Some of us are at “RVillage.com”, let’s stay strong