‘The UK’s Fyre Festival’: The yoga entrepreneurs who’ve left small merchants and shoppers 1000’s of kilos out of pocket – as they proceed lavish yachting enterprise

Two yoga ‘enthusiasts’ who organised a festival described as the place where ‘fitness and holistic therapies meets glittery festival antics’ have left clients and traders owed  thousands. 

In what has now been dubbed by some of their disappointed followers as the ‘UK’s Fyre Festival’, Roman and Ella Wroath first founded their business Soul Circus Limited back in 2016. 

Described as a festival that was ‘both revitalising and energising in equal measure’, as well as a weekend to ‘recalibrate’ and ‘put yourself back together’, many yoga and wellness devotees flocked to the event year after year.

In 2018, they held their first Soul Circus festival in the Cotswolds and continued to promote the event with ‘the most sought after’ instructors and practitioners in the industry for the next five years. 

But as the date for their sixth festival in 2024 rolled around things began to go awry, with SoulCircus attendees old and new told the date was changed and later cancelled – with some not receiving any notification from the business at all. 

There was a lack of consistency when it came to refunds and rolled over tickets from the offset, with some not offered the latter while others believed the 2025 event was still on until they found out Soul Circus was being liquidated. 

Some yogis even took to social media to inform others they had travelled to the wellness weekend in August and were greeted by an empty field and a confused farmer. 

And when some asked for refunds Soul Circus LTD contested their chargebacks, with director Roman even going as far as to threaten harassment reports and legal action when contacted by disappointed festivalgoers.

And to add insult to injury for those who are scrambling to get their money back –  the two yogis continue to have an active yachting company Galaxia International, according to Companies House.

Described as an ‘eBrockage’ and an ‘eMarina’ introducing ‘waves of change’, the company has previously organised events in the sunny Costa del Sol. 

When MailOnline visited the business website, of which Roman Wroath is a director and Ella is formerly a director – it reads ‘new website coming soon’. 

Despite the information on Companies House, Ella’s LinkedIn stated that she is currently the founder of Galaxia International, as well as the founder and director of Soul Circus LTD.  

However the Soul Circus website tells a very different story – completely wiped from the face of the internet. Tickets for Soul Circus 2025 were also being advertised on the site until December 4 of last year. 

It is also understood that while the pair are currently in the UK, they do have a residence in Portugal.

Soul Circus recorded an increasing loss year on year, with their latest 2023 filing showing a shareholder deficit of £259,994. The true scale of how much the pair owe to traders and customers alike is set to be laid out in a statement of affairs. 

A statement of affairs is a document published by Companies House detailing a company’s assets and liabilities during the insolvency process.  

All the while, festivalgoers such as single mother, Helen Holland and Lianna Greene have been waiting well over a year for their refunds, spending £225 and £1,395 on tickets respectively. 

For 45-year-old Ms Greene the Soul Circus festival was meant to be a surprise get-away for one of her closest friends, as she bought nine tickets at a discount for the entire group – with a couple of bottles of prosecco thrown in with her order. 

But just four weeks before they were due to set off on the relaxing and holistic weekend she received an e-mail from Soul Circus saying the event had been cancelled. 

The e-mail which was sent on July 5th extended an apology from the firm to their ‘cherished community’ saying that it was with ‘heavy hearts’ the festival had been cancelled due to ‘a dramatic rise in operational costs’. 

‘We refuse to deliver anything less than the exceptional experience you deserve, leading us to this decision,’ the statement read. 

‘We kindly ask you to please allow us some time and space to work through the current situation and we will provide further information in the next 45 – 60 days.’ 

Due to the short notice, Ms Greene couldn’t cancel the AirBnB so the group decided to have a quiet weekend in Gloucestershire for her friend’s birthday, as she patiently waited for her lump sum to be refunded. 

After a lot of chasing and ‘back-and-forth’, the Hertfordshire woman eventually received a Google form where they could request a refund from Soul Circus.   

But when she logged into her online portal via the festival’s website it suggested she wasn’t owed a single penny, so she submitted a charge back with Barclaycard.

By this point she had given her friends the money for their tickets back leaving herself out of pocket by £1,395 because she believed she would be refunded. 

But the company contested the charge – suggesting she ordered tickets on a sale or return basis for Rise Festival in Ibiza – an entirely different event she had never attended or purchased tickets for. 

‘For me to pay everybody back, I was putting myself at risk if Barclaycard wouldn’t budge,’ she told MailOnline. 

‘After investigating, I feel I am in a predicament, I have just found out the company is trying to go into liquidation and you’re kind of wondering if I will get the refund. 

‘I have got real mixed emotions because we were doing something nice for our friend, which on paper seemed like it was going to be amazing. 

‘But the fact people can just run away with people’s money whilst everyone has paid into a festival that didn’t happen and have been fobbed off. 

‘This is our hard earned money and our downtime which is special to all of us – so the fact they are able to just get-away with it, is just beyond words really.’ 

She added: ‘The way the whole thing has been handled is really inappropriate. It sits really uncomfortably to be honest.’

Single mother Helen Holland, 36, previously had a ‘very positive’ experience attending the holistic festival in 2022, so didn’t think twice about handing over £225 for a ticket.

But the event that for her was based on ‘community and connection’ turned into a disaster in 2024, leaving her out of pocket and her once happy memories soured.

The yoga teacher from Hertfordshire was offered to roll over her ticket when the event was cancelled in 2024, but opted for a refund. 

Ms Holland said: ‘They asked the whole time for patience and asked people to give them time to sort everything out, and being the trusting person I am, I believed them and waited for them to get in touch.’

However neither Soul Circus or its directors got in touch with the single mother, who found out there was a form to apply for a ‘discretionary refund’ via a friend. 

In 2024 Soul Circus changed their Terms and Conditions page six separate times, according to their website’s data history. 

Companies can give refunds at their own discretion when they are not legally obligated to give customers their money back. 

If a festival or event is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances customers have the right to a full refund, except in specific instances outlined in the terms and conditions under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. 

On September 12, 2024 the following line had been added to the terms and conditions page: ‘If Soul Circus agrees to a discretionary refund, [the] refund will be provided within a 12-month period.’

By this point the event, which was due to take place in the August, had already been cancelled with many people still waiting on their refunds. 

‘I don’t think people should be able to treat others like that especially in the name of being health and looking out for each other, it makes it that little bit extra more sore,’ Helen said.

‘Anybody believed that they would stick to their word have obviously been stung quite badly.’

Now the single mother has become ‘very wary’ of parting with any money, adding: ‘As time goes on I just feel disappointed.

‘I feel incredibly frustrated that they can get away with behaving that manner, and a complete lack of empathy for anyone else 

‘It makes me wary of companies in the future – and it’s just left me feel sad to be honest.

‘Seeing their posts online – it just feels like they are sat on a yacht somewhere drinking away everyone’s money.’

But it wasn’t only customers who were left out of pocket, herbal tea business Mother Cuppa and its owner Candice Mason almost went bust when Roman and Ella’s firm charged her new company twice for a pitch – and refused to provide a refund. 

The 42-year-old first contacted Roman in November 2023 enquiring about prices for a stand at the festival in the hopes of growing her clientele and thus her business.  

She wanted to pay her £600 in staggered payments but was charged the full amount, with the additional instalment plans still being taken from her account during the Christmas period in 2023.

She told MailOnline: ‘I kept emailing him, saying, you need to stop the instalment payments and refund me the additional payments back – but he failed to do that. 

‘It continued to take the instalment payment from my bank accounts and for seven months I emailed asking for the refund for the duplicate payments.’

The entrepreneur claims Roman tried to liaise a phone call between herself and his wife Ella, which left her confused: ‘I didn’t need a phone call just need[ed] my money refunded. I want[ed] my money back.’

‘My business was only a year old when I booked it and I didn’t have a lot of money, so it was a big risk to book things like that.’ 

She added: ‘it caused me cash flow problems, I  borrowed from my mum for my business and it really broke my confidence and trust.’

Down by £1,200 in total, Candice said she was ignored for weeks as a time, whilst claiming that when Roman did eventually reply he allegedly told her she would not get her money back and that she could not cancel due to the terms and conditions. 

She later began court proceedings against Soul Circus Ltd in July, where neither Ella or Roman attended any of mediation or court hearings. Their response to the court proceedings referenced Soul Circus’s terms and conditions. 

The judge later ruled in Candice’s favour ordering Soul Circus’s directors – who were not present to pay her the £1,200 plus court fees totalling to £1,491.16. 

Despite a court county judgment (CCJ) being placed against Roman and Ella’s company Soul Circus, the duo have still not paid Candice her money back.

In December, Candice e-mailed Roman informing him she was due her money, in line with the CCJ: ‘I wasn’t going to let this drop, it was a lot of money for me. 

‘I got a sh***y reply that basically said along the lines of “I’m going to liquidate the company. You’re going to get instructions from the insolvency people”.’ 

MailOnline has also seen correspondence where Roman threatened Candice with defamation after she contacted him asking for a refund. 

She was also never informed by Soul Circus that the event was no longer going ahead despite never officially cancelling her space 

‘I am really angry and it takes quite a lot to make me angry. Its the audacity of it, that is not a professionally run operation and he is not a professional person,’ she said: ‘It’s left me feeling bitter and twisted.’

‘The money I lost was a months worth of stock – I didn’t have enough money to stock, he caused me a massive problem. 

‘It’s left me feeling like I can’t trust events companies in that way anymore. I don’t want to do them anymore. I was so stressed at one point. 

‘And the fact the whole event is geared around well-being, mental well-being within the industry and this is so anti-that this experience. 

‘He’s completely taken the p**s because  he’s picking and choosing which bank to argue with or not. I cannot believe he’s been allowed to have another business.’

Due to Candice taking the pair to small claims court, there is currently a county court judgement (CCJ) against Soul Circus Limited. 

A CCJ is a court order to pay a debt or compensate someone, and it can in some cases impact your credit rating. 

However Roman and Ella Wroath are no strangers to CCJs having previously had one placed against them personally for not paying rent to their previous landlord. 

The individual, who wishes to remain anonymous, told MailOnline the duo almost left their family on the brink of financial ruin during the height of COVID. 

The Wroaths began renting the London flat at £2,275-a-month in October 2019, initially ‘pushing’ for a two-year contract, which was whittled down to 12 months. 

The landlords assumed they had done everything right, conducting the proper checks on the couple, who passed with flying colours. 

They claim to have noticed some ‘red flags’ a couple months in due to alleged minor damage and noise complaints from neighbours, but the situation went completely awry in March when COVID-19 hit.  

They alleged: ‘[Ella] called my husband in tears and we bought it because they said ~: “Oh, we’ve lost everything. We can’t pay the rent. We want to go”.’

However the Wroaths were in the middle of their year-long contract, and were obligated to pay until they managed to find someone else to take over their contract. 

They even tried setting up a payment plan for Ella and Roman, but no payments had come through and the pair had stopped responding, with the landlords later realising the pair had abandoned the property.  

‘After several months we came to realise  that they had no intention to pay. It was thousands of pounds by then and we realised we were in deep trouble,’ they said. 

‘There’s no way I could get a job in lockdown because everybody was being laid off or on furlough.’

She added: ‘The stress was so much that I was covered in psoriasis. i couldn’t even open my eyes. 

‘My entire body was covered. I’m still suffering from it. And honestly, we thought we were going to be financially ruined’ 

Eventually they took the Wroaths to court, but due to COVID-19 a process what should have taken four to six months ended up taking three years and meant the two had to part with even more money. 

Despite being ordered in March 2023 by the court to pay their landlords a sum of £9,874.16 they did not do so before the 30-day deadline, meaning this CCJ is currently still on the Wroaths credit record. 

After causing their landlords significant stress, they paid the full amount ordered by the courts via an instalment plan. 

‘Every month when the money come through we were surprised It was a bittersweet satisfaction because it had taken so long – and the fact that the responsibility of doing all the work is on the victim,’ they said. 

‘Make no mistake they were living the best life, while we were the ones who were at home worried about money, not sleeping, dealing with psoriasis and and ill health 

‘It also meant that we didn’t enjoy our life, it sucked out all the joy. We could have spent time with our elderly parents and been with them. 

‘We could have been with my father-in-law who died from a sudden fall, but instead  we were busy doing all the paperwork and speaking to lawyers.’ 

They added: ‘The [flat] was going to be an investment for my future and it turned out to be a complete disaster.’

‘We sold it. We haven’t made much money on it, but just the relief of not having to deal with that nonsense was enough for us.’

Recalling the ordeal,they said they ultimately ‘felt betrayed’ tearfully adding: ‘I think what’s most hurtful is that they just don’t care. 

‘Even to this day I must say I have lost my faith in human beings. 

‘It’s broken something inside of us and it’s very sad, because we always been really good people. Even now I just don’t look at people the same way.’

Now those who have been wronged by Roman have formed a group created by Jeni, who was a loyal attendee of Soul Circus festival, as they all attempt to try and get their money back as the company begins its liquidation process. 

The group now has around 237, some who have received their refunds, many who are still out of pocket and some, who haven’t been notified about the company going into liquidation despite technically being creditors. 

She wanted to cancel her tickets after being ‘very annoyed’ that the 2024 dates had been changed last minute – little did she know she would have to fight tooth and nail for almost a year for £198 back.  

After receiving no money she claimed a charge back in August, which did not land in her account until December due to their being a contest from Soul Circus LTD

Jeni told MailOnline ‘I suppose it shocked me that they weren’t forthcoming with a refund because they had made the error.

‘Its a massive juxtaposition that a well-being festival that’s focus on wellness and well-being and health has been so detrimental to so many peoples.’

MailOnline attempted to contact Ella and Roman Wroath for comment but they did not reply. 

We have also approached Galaxia International, Soul Circus LTD, Action Fraud, the Insolvency Service and the Financial Ombudsman for comment. 

Companies House declined to comment.