Mercury Festival organisers deny claims of underpaying staff, blacklisting vendors after viral TikTok posts
The organisers of Mercury Festival Singapore, an art and thrift market focused on supporting small businesses, have denied allegations of underpaying employees, blacklisting vendors, and using artificial intelligence for marketing purposes.
The latest edition of the bi-annual event was held on June 5 to 7 at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre and made headlines for drawing an overwhelming response. Visitors reported a five-hour wait, with the online queue system closing early.
Just a week later, a TikTok account named @exposing.mercuryfest surfaced, making a series of allegations against the event’s organisers.
In a post on June 14, the netizen, who said that they had participated in the event in previous years, claimed the core team had been reduced to three people following an alleged mass firing of staff members.
The netizen further alleged that helpers were “paid $2 a day”, and vendors who chose to booth at another event were “blacklisted”.
Another post on June 15 claimed that organisers had promoted Mercury Festival at another event.
The netizen also said that organisers would gossip about creators with smaller followings.
The allegations continued in a post the following day, which accused organiers of imposing unreasonable working hours, mistreatment of vendors, showing favouritism, overcrowding booths, and using AI for merchandise production.
‘Have never blacklisted vendors’: Organisers respond
Directors of Mercury Festival Singapore, Kelly and Germaine, denied the allegations in an Instagram post on June 19.
“We do not, and have never, blacklisted vendors from participating in other events,” the statement read, adding that individuals would only be asked to leave if their presence makes others “unsafe or uncomfortable”.
The organisers added that AI was not used for marketing purposes, and vendor line-ups were curated to exclude AI-generated art businesses.
However, they acknowledged that some team members had previously used AI-generated captions. Those individuals have since been “let go” after allegedly ignoring instructions to refrain from doing so.
Staff agreed to be paid ‘small honorarium’
In response to allegations of low pay, organisers said team members are given “a small honorarium based on an agreed-upon arrangement”. They added that members would be given additional compensation for contributions outside their job scope.
Team members who were interested in a full-time position were purportedly asked to submit the following information:
- Current job scope
- Expected salary range
- How they would like to expand their job scope
“It was clearly communicated in the ‘Disclaimers’ point that salary discussions could only proceed after these details were provided. However, our former team members failed to complete this,” the statement added.
While the organisers acknowledged that they “chose to stay till odd hours of the night to complete work”, they said attendance was “entirely optional” and that it would be clearly communicated whenever other staff members’ presence was required.
They also described the allegations as “disparaging and baseless”, thanking the public for its support.
Netizens largely supportive, others call out ‘vague’ response
exposing.mercuryfest made another post on June 19, responding to the organisers’ statement.
In the comments section on the event’s Instagram page, netizens were largely supportive of their statement.
“The mercury team works so hard to provide us all the convenience, comfortable and awesome experience. Thank you!” one netizen chimed in.
Another said they were “baffled” by the rumours and had “never doubted” the organisers. A commenter even described the “level of vendor welfare” over the years as “consistently amazing”.
However, one netizen alleged that comments were being deleted from the post, while another said that the response was “vague”.
Stomp has reached out to Mercury Festival Singapore and exposing.mercuryfest for more information.
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