The company behind the now-shuttered Pitchfork Music Festival is suing its co-founder, alleging he misappropriated more than $500,000 in festival funds.Pitchfork Festivals LLC filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Chicago accusing co-founder Mike Reed of keeping $564,680 by falsely claiming the money reimbursed expenses he had already acquired while preparing for the 2025 festival before it was canceled.Pitchfork Music Festival, which ran for 19 years at Union Park, was canceled in 2024 after organizers said the rapidly evolving music festival landscape was behind the decision to end the event.Pitchfork and Big Stik LLC, Reed’s event production company, entered into contract in 2019 to provide production services for the music festival, including maintaining an event bank account.The lawsuit claims that Pitchfork advanced $3,970,180 to Big Stik in preparation for the 2024 festival.Within 30 days of the 2024 festival’s conclusion, Pitchfork’s head of procurement, Alys Wood-Bibby, emailed Reed stating that Condé Nast — Pitchfork’s New York-based parent company — planned to move forward with the festival in 2025. However, according to the complaint, the parties never established a “scope of work” agreement, and Reed did not submit any budget or expense requests related to 2025 planning activities.The complaint further alleges that Reed did not raise any claims, objections or notices regarding “wind-down” costs after being informed that the 2025 festival would not move forward.Reed was notified the 2025 festival was canceled on Nov. 11, 2024, according to the lawsuit.On Jan. 8, 2025, Pitchfork asked Big Stik to return the remaining money in Pitchfork's event account. Big Stik refused and allegedly submitted a fabricated "Wind Down Settlement Report" to Pitchfork's finance director the next day that contained material misrepresentations designed to account for the exact amount Pitchfork was seeking to recover.Reed wrote that “the remaining monies are incurred and attributed to the canceled 2025 event and the wind-down of all operations.” However, the lawsuit alleges that “a large portion of the costs” had not been incurred as of Jan. 9, 2025, and accuses Reed of falsely attributing $565,680 to expenses related to labor, production and cancellation fees, storage, legal services, accounting and taxes.The lawsuit alleges that Reed reverse engineered the precise balance remaining in Pitchfork’s event account.Instead of returning the funds, Reed allegedly transferred the money from the company contracted by Pitchfork to another entity under his control, At Pluto Ltd,The lawsuit alleges that Reed concealed the transfer of funds and that Pitchfork only discovered it through the discovery process in a related arbitration proceeding.Neither Reed nor Condé Nast responded to a request for comment.Pitchfork accused Reed of fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, accounting and fraudulent transfer.Reed has been a fixture in Chicago’s music scene for more than 20 years. In a 2024 interview with the Sun-Times, Reed described Pitchfork Music Festival as “an event for people who are really into music.” He said the festival stood in contrast to larger events like Lollapalooza and Windy City Smokeout, which he characterized as “lifestyle events.”According to Reed, music was the primary draw for Pitchfork attendees, while people attending “lifestyle” events were often seeking a broader experience. Reed also owns local venues Constellation and the Hungry Brain. ...read more read less