Business Explanation

This comes from a source close to the companies:

Widdershins Inc is a NJ Corporation that has one stockholder, Jeff Mach.  Widdershins has two DBA's (Doing Business As), that function as Aliases for that operation.  One of these is Jeff Mach Events, and another is Just Magical Events.  That means both the JME names are just alternate names for Widdershins, Inc.  Widdershins has bank accounts in its name.

Widdershins Inc owns Steampunk World's Fair, and sold tickets and collected other reservation fees for a SPWF event that was orignally planned for May of 2018.

The sole stockholder of Widdershins was outed for many alledged infractions, and as a result, lost enough revenue that Widdershins is effectively insolvent - they have no money to operate or put on shows.  As of now, nobody works for Widdershins - it has no officers, no employees, just the one stockholder.

Silver Phoenix Society (SPS) is a newly-formed Non Profit Corporation.  (Their Certificate Of Formation is available publically; they do not yet have a 501(c)(3) registration because those take upwards of a year to acquire.)  Non Profit Corporations do not have owners or stockholders, they have Trustees who manage the organization and its funds.  There are legal requirements to publish information about their trustees in public, as well as other financial reporting obligations.  These organizations are required by law to be public about their trustees and payroll.  Some of the Trustees were former employees or contractors or staffers for Widdershins.  Jeff Mach is neither a Trustee nor employee of SPS, and they'd be required to disclose this if it were true.  SPS has bank accounts in its name.

SPS attempted to take over SPWF by acquiring the rights to that name from Widdershins.  They sold some of their own tickets to their planned event, and took some other deposits and reservation fees.  When they were unable to complete the purchase of those rights, they invented a new name for the event they planned to host, in order to prevent Widdershins from having any legal claim to their proceeds.  Due to other circumstances, this event is now cancelled, and will not be held.  SPS has already refunded every ticket they sold to this cancelled event.

If you bought a ticket from SPS for the cancelled event in May, your money is already on its way back to you.  Your money was in the SPS bank account, and they sent it back.

If you bought a ticket from Widdershins/JME for an event in May, that money was deposited in the Widdershins bank account at the time of your purchase.  As Widdershins is now insolvent, it may no longer have your money in its account.  If you want to claim a refund for an event that Widdershins will not be able to hold, that claim should be filed with Widdershins, as that corporation took the money. 

Regardless of who consulted with who, who told the truth or lied about what, or who supported who morally, this represents the actual legal status of these organizations and the finances behind ticket purchases.  Financial institutions follow rules and regulations and laws, not rumors and conspiracy theories.  If you chase for a refund from the wrong entity, you'll come up empty, so double-check who took your money to begin with before taking additional action.