Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Picture a room full of people in tuxedos and ball gowns. Crowns on their heads. Cocktails in hand. And one by one they walk up to a microphone to tell a room full of strangers about the time everything fell apart.
That is the Failure Ball. And it happens right here in Denver.
The fifth one is set for Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. Black tie. Crowns encouraged. Tickets are
Jessica Manuszak is 37. She runs Verve & Vigour Copywriting Studio, and back in 2020 she started this whole thing. Her words, not mine: she wanted to "glamorize fuckups" and "drag our dark secrets into the light in the most absurd way humanly possible."
I mean, read that again. That is not corporate charity gala language. That is a person who has actually been in the pit and decided the only way out was to throw a party about it.
Here is the part people miss about why this exists. Manuszak did not build the Failure Ball for the general public at first. She built it for Colorado small business owners. The people who bet the house on an idea. The ones who put on a brave face at networking events while quietly wondering if they made a catastrophic mistake. She wanted to give them community and, more than that, she wanted to dissolve the shame.
And there is real weight behind that. Studies have found business owners deal with higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts than people in traditional jobs. Small business owners especially. So when you own the thing, when it is your name on the door, the failures do not feel like data points. They feel like who you are.
The Failure Ball takes that feeling and puts a crown on it.
This is not just cathartic theater. Proceeds fund free community mental health workshops and go to a suicide prevention nonprofit called To Write Love on Her Arms. Since it started, the event has donated roughly
That is real money coming out of a party where the whole point is admitting you screwed up.
The evening has some structure to it too. There is a lineup of speakers taking the stage: Dusti Arab, Otisa Eads, Tiffany Han, Anne Hill, Tiffany Lanier, Amber McCue, Adrianna Muñoz, Kathy Sizemore, Joanna Tiger and Jane Ysadora. There is a silent auction. And here is the one that gets me, an anonymous failure confessional, so if you are not ready to walk up to a mic in front of the room, you can still get it off your chest.
There is also a memorial for people who died by suicide. Which is the reminder underneath all the crowns and cocktails. The absurdity is the delivery system. The reason is dead serious.
Manuszak says the Failure Ball has sold out every single year it has run. More than 100 tickets were already gone for this one when I checked, and there were still some left through thefailureball.com.
So if the idea of standing in a beautiful room, dressed to the nines, toasting the deal that collapsed or the business that folded or the relationship that imploded, if that sounds like exactly what you need, do not wait on it.
We talk a lot around here about the highs. The new restaurant everybody is lined up for. The neighborhood that just popped. The home that sold over asking in a weekend. And that stuff is fun, I get to write about it constantly.
But nobody throws a gala for the deal that fell through. Nobody pops champagne when the offer gets pulled and the closing collapses and you are back to square one. Real estate people know this feeling cold, by the way. Ours is a business built on things falling apart at the last second and having to smile through it anyway. Half the job is failing gracefully and getting up the next morning.
That is what makes the Failure Ball feel so Denver to me. It is a room full of people who are done pretending the whole thing has been smooth. They put on the tux. They put on the crown. And they say the quiet part out loud, together, for a cause that actually saves lives.
Cheers to the tears. Sept. 19. Bring your worst story.