Businesses distance themselves from Albion Park Summer of Love festival, sponsored by Shellharbour Council

Several people the Mercury spoke with claim religious fundamentalists at the Summer of Love tried to indoctrinate them, attempting to use physical force to baptise them in a blow-up children's pool or take them to a "healing tent" at the event held at Croome Sporting Complex.

One woman said she was refused proper medical treatment for her son's broken arm and told prayers would fix it.

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But festival director Jenny O'Dea denied these accusations and said the ticketed event was not organised by any religious organisation.

"[There are] plenty of haters when something new gets started, but as that great philosopher Taylor Swift said, 'the haters gonna hate hate hate'," Ms O'Dea said.

"We'll be back next year for more peace, love, hope."

Stallholders, performers and attendees said they believed the festival was going to be a "community music festival" and were unaware of the religious aspects.

Others criticised it for being poorly run, and said they chose not to return for the festival's second day as it was not worth their time.

Jess Little was packing up her homewares stall when her son tripped and broke his wrist but found no sign of a first-aid tent nor any official first-aid officers.

"In the middle of trying to stop my son from fainting, as he went into shock very fast, a lady tried to make me take my son over to the natural healing tent," she said.

"I politely said 'go away' and no 'it's broken, he needs real medical attention'."

The pair ended up in Wollongong Hospital for treatment of a fracture to the radius.

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Kylie Attard of Wild Heart Candy said she was "disgusted" to find a religious group targeting her stall as they apparently labelled sugar as the devil and was "bewildered" as to why they were invited.

She witnessed her teenage employee being "grabbed and pulled" by a person who wanted to "heal" her.

"It got weirder and weirder, and physically getting quite forceful," Kylie said.

"I was mortified ... I was in disbelief of what we'd seen."

The two-day festival was to run from 10am until late and promoted to include live music (including gospel tunes and songs of protest), children's circus activities, ukulele workshops, open mic competitions, a 1000-strong kids choir, gymnastics and plenty of barefoot "hippies" singing about "peace and love".

One musician (who wished not to be named) said he was "a little saddened to see the way [some attendees] were approaching people, I didn't think it was appropriate for a family, community festival".

He said he was "pretty angry" that he had offered to promote the event, unaware that this would happen.

"I thought it was [going to be] a proper community music festival. That's why I was there to help my community and perform."

The musician said he wanted nothing to do with the festival ever again, and said some volunteers also felt blindsided.

On a now deleted post, Sydney-based Christian band Kingdom Hope, who performed in the gospel tent said they were "pleased" to be part of the event.

"We pray together also for the blessing, revival an surrounding area," they had written.

Stallholder Beth Wakely said in 10 years of running market stalls she hadn't seen anything so strange and poorly organised.

Mrs Wakely said she was not "anti-religious" but became uncomfortable with some of the fanatical people there and what they were doing - due to that and lack of trade, she and her husband packed up early and requested their stall fee back.

"We got there and there was no organisation, it was pretty much set-up wherever you want to," she said.

"We only stayed until about 1.30pm when we realised what was going on ... we're all still bewildered, it was just so wrong."

Ken Murray had his ice-cream van also at the event on Saturday but chose not to return on Sunday after calling it "a dead loss".

"It was very poor, I would have paid more out in wages and for stock than the money I made".

Stallholders claim there were no maps of the event or where to setup, there was no signage coming in or at the venue, and there was no safety information or run-through.

Shellharbour City Council awarded a $10,000 sponsorship grant to Ms O'Dea in November 2021 to produce the festival. A council spokeswoman has since told the Mercury they have fielded complaints in recent days and directed people to instead contact the festival director as it was not a council event.

The Mercury observed a clear lack of festival-patrons on Saturday, with stall-holder accounts claiming they saw around 20 people from the general public walk through the gates during the day, while musicians reported performing to a mere 50 people Saturday night.

However, official paperwork associated with their development application to Shellharbour Council to use the sports complex stated the event could host up to 1900 patrons at any one time.

Despite being promoted as a "not-for-profit", the Summer of Love Festival is not registered with the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission (ACNC), nor does it have a registered ABN. It is, however, registered as an "association" with ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission).

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