A Cuyahoga County jury has sided with a group of music industry investors, rejecting a roughly $40 million damages claim brought by the organizers behind the now-dormant WonderStruck festival. The verdict came after a two-week trial in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, closing out a legal battle that stretches back to 2024.
According to cleveland.com, the jury's decision came after a judge dismissed several of the plaintiffs' claims on Oct. 20, and jurors then returned a complete defense verdict on everything that remained. The lawsuit was filed by Elevation Music LLC, the company behind the WonderStruck, WonderBus, WonderRoad and WonderWorks festivals, against investor Michelle Wesley Licata, her investment vehicle Lucky Lyrical Investments LLC, and their affiliated companies.
Elevation's original complaint alleged breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation, among other claims. The lawsuit claimed Lucky Lyrical Investments failed to fulfill contractual obligations and verbal promises to invest money in Elevation Festivals LLC and Elevation Recording Group LLC, which the organizers said left both companies in severe financial distress.
Who Was Named in the Case
Cliff Chenfeld was also named as a defendant in the litigation. The law firm Kohrman Jackson & Krantz represented Chenfeld, Licata and their affiliated companies, the outlet's report noted. Per the KJK | Kohrman Jackson Krantz announcement, the case was formally captioned Elevation Music, LLC, et al. v. Thundercrack Productions, LLC, et al., Case No. CV 24-106471.
Dan Matusicky, an attorney involved in the case, said the trial was hard-fought and that his team was prepared at every stage, cleveland.com reported.
A Festival That Hasn't Returned Since 2024
WonderStruck, which was formerly known as Laurelive, ran from 2016 to 2023 at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, according to Axios. Coin performed on day two of the 2023 edition on the Lakeland campus. Axios also reported that Elevation president Denny Young said in 2025 that WonderStruck was recapitalizing and would return in the future at a more centrally located venue, though no confirmed date or site has been announced.
WonderStruck and its sister festivals have not taken place since their 2024 cancellation, cleveland.com's reporting confirms. That cancellation was first detailed in a June 2024 cleveland.com report, which noted the Wonder-branded counterpart festivals in Columbus, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh were also off that year as the lawsuit against investors was being filed.
Cleveland's Rocky Run of Music Festivals
The WonderStruck saga fits into a broader pattern of struggling festival ventures around Cleveland. Axios has reported that Kid Cudi's Moon Man's Landing Festival drew an estimated 18,000 people to the Flats West Bank in 2022 but was canceled the following year, while AEG Presents' InCuya Music Festival on downtown's Malls B and C in August 2018 folded after just one run due to poor attendance.
By contrast, Axios noted that the Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival brought 75,000 people to Mansfield's Ohio State Reformatory, a reminder of the scale organizers in the region have struggled to replicate closer to Cleveland itself. For now, the jury's verdict leaves WonderStruck's promised comeback as an open question rather than a settled plan.
