random idea: what if you funded a music festival using Kickstarter, or something like it? Instead of selling tickets, you’d promote the fundraiser, and if commitments failed to reach the cutoff level, you’d just shrug your shoulders and the whole thing would vanish into a puff of good intentions.
The perk associated with the lowest contribution tier might be “we send you an email the day before letting you know where the venue is”…
Kickstarter is kind of a one-to-many escrow service.