Underpaid staff, AI use: Ex-vendors & staff accuse Mercury Festival team of misconduct, organisers deny allegations

Former vendors and team members from popular Singapore art and thrift market Mercury Festival have come forward with allegations of misconduct by the event organisers.

Among the claims were allegations of AI use, underpaid staff, unfair firing of staff members, and targeting smaller events to poach customers and vendors.

In response to Mothership's queries, the directors of Mercury Festival denied the allegations.

They added that they have apologised for "misunderstandings" with other events.

"Exposing Mercury Fest"

The first of the allegations was posted online by a TikTok account, @exposing.mercuryfest, on Jun. 13.

The person claimed to be an anonymous former vendor at the event.

They alleged that the festival organisers had done the following:

• Underpaid and overworked staff
• Mass-fired staff members for "stating their concerns"
• Engaged in a spat with another local event, Konbini
• Used AI for their publicity efforts

Speaking to Mothership, the ex-vendor said that she had participated in the festival since its very first event.

But during the most recent event, she began to hear rumours that some staff from the organising team had been fired.

From there, "things started to snowball", she said.

Allegations of underpaid staff

The ex-vendor alleged that staff members get a base pay of S$400 per event.

Mercury Festival is held twice a year, which means each payout translates to six months of work.

Mothership reached out to some ex-staff members, including those who were allegedly mass-fired, for clarity.

Speaking as a group, they said that they are not affiliated with the @exposing.mercuryfest TikTok account, and "do not wish to take [the event] down", but rather to clear their names.

They confirmed that they received a base pay of S$400 per six months' work.

Task-based commissions would raise this pay to S$500 to S$1,000, and select staff were also entitled to a free booth at Mercury Festival.

The Business Times reported that 3 core members split their S$20,000 earnings, after costs, between themselves.

Mercury Festival has since clarified that they gave staff members a “small honorarium based on an agreed-upon arrangement”.

They added that team members are able to work remotely and on their own time.

Spat with Konbini

Mothership also reached out to Konbini, one of the smaller events which the Mercury Fest organisers had allegedly targeted.

A spokesperson from the event confirmed that during last year's edition of the event, on Jun. 14, 2025, staff from Mercury Festival held "promotional activities" on Konbini premises, without permission.

They allegedly approached vendors asking why they had not joined Mercury Festival instead, causing them to feel "pressured", the spokesperson said.

One staff member also allegedly shouted, "See you at Mercury!" to visitors.

In a public statement posted on Jun. 19, the Mercury Festival directors, Kelly and Germaine, said that they had "personally reached out to organisers of other events" to apologise for any misunderstandings.

"For every event we attend as patrons, we go with the sole intent of shopping and supporting the community," the organisers said.

Alleged AI use

The directors also addressed the allegations of the mass firing of team members, and of AI use.

"We strictly do not use any AI in our marketing. All of our posters and graphics are drawn by hand via Procreate and Canva," they said.

In an apparent reference to the alleged firing, they added that past team members had used AI to generate captions, but that they had been told to stop.

"Unfortunately [the instructions] were ignored, and these team members had been let go from the team," Kelly and Germaine said.

Speaking to Mothership, the ex-staff declined to provide details on their firing, apart from acknowledging that it was "abrupt".

But they denied that it was due to their AI use.

One former team member, A, who'd worked on captions for the event publicity, said that the screenshot provided in the Mercury Festival statement had been "cropped and taken completely out of context".

"What happened was, it was my first time writing captions and I didn't know how to, so I asked, 'how do I write a caption?'

Then they told me 'just use ChatGPT'."

But when A did so, Kelly responded to "make it look less AI" — hence the exchange in the screenshot.

Another team member, C, said that the directors had never told them to stop using AI, but rather encouraged it.

"Using ChatGPT was the way all of us were taught. In fact, we even made use of one of the directors' ChatGPT Premium accounts," C said.

The ex-staff added that the Mercury Fest organisers had repeatedly used AI in their publicity efforts, including to model some of their merch designs.