A convicted fraudster planned a festival from his mother's kitchen which ended up being make-believe, and people lost money. Dubbed at the world's first hydrogen-powered music festival , the mega three-day event was going to be held this August bank holiday. It was complete with a glittering line-up including The Killers, Pulp, Def Leppard, Wet Leg and The Libertines. But in reality, none of it was true. An investigation by the BBC revealed how "fantasist" and convicted fraudster James Kenny planned the "festival" which brought Glastonbury headliners, Hollywood stars and even a country's government into its orbit. Once he was tracked down by the Beeb, he said he was "truly sorry" to people who lost out on money, and insisted he intended for the festival to actually happen. According to insiders, people with big ideas and flamboyant plans are not surprising in the industry. But when a man comes along, pitching a multi-million pound festival bigger than Latitude and claiming investment from big names - such as the co-founder of restaurant chain Leon, John Vincent - there's no surprise that people thought he might actually pull it off. However, the once "100 per cent convinced" employees and suppliers slowly started to question if any of it was real. One insider told the BBC : "It was a festival made of paper. Everything kind of unravelled and I realised it doesn't exist for anybody else but him." Now, some think Kenny never intended to see his plans through. This is because deposits weren't paid for bands, licence applications were never made and investors he claimed to be talking to say they have never heard of him. So, what happened? The festival - Monmouth Rising - was planned to be held outside the Welsh border down and claimed affordable tickets, cashless payments and a "commitment to inclusivity" with no VIP areas. In February, the 47-year-old fraudster showed site maps he claimed were designed with the same software used to plan the Paris Olympics to a town hall meeting. As well as that, he claimed BBC Wales would broadcast the event live, and festival goers would enjoy bacon butties fired into the campsite from a cannon in the mornings. His claims were crazy. He told potential employees that "one of the founders of Creamfields" had invested, and an assessment from Welsh government showed the festival would bring £28.9m into the area. One insider, who didn't want to be named for fear of missing out on future jobs, told the BBC : "I have worked in the industry for 20 years and it is really, really unheard of to do a festival that big for the first time. "It's embarrassing [that I believed him], but in this industry you want someone to be a bit crazy." As well as that, he roped in music producer Chris Whitehouse to create a soundtrack for the advert, which was supposedly going to be voiced by Idris Elba, who would also DJ at the festival. The only problem, Elba's agent said there was, "no record of Idris doing anything for this man." On top of that, Chris hasn't been paid for his work and has issued court proceedings against Kenny for breach of contract. Employees were excited, and raring to go. But in late February, they woke up to find they hadn't been paid. On top of that, the festival's website was down and work emails were inaccessible. The Loyalty Co founder Adam Purslow said his firm built the website at a cut-price rate for his "serial entrepreneur" friend Mr Kenny. Adam said the website was pulled after his firm were handed a "fishy" document as proof of incoming funding. It turned out that, while Kenny had claimed that he was "literally just waiting" for money to come in, BBC Wales discovered this supposed money Mr Kenny was promising was a £90,000 cash advance, known as invoice funding. This was turned down because it failed due diligence checks. This was because an invoice from train company GWR, which Mr Kenny handed over as proof of incoming funds, was flagged as a potential forgery. The company had "immediately reported" its suspicions to British Transport Police as they couldn't match the invoice to the records. He also faced further financial problems, and vendors were never paid. On top of that, the Welsh government said no impact assessment had been made, and the supposed headliners were never contacted and investors hadn't heard of him. With six months to go until the festival, Monmouth Rising was nothing but a fever dream. On March 6, he posted an open letter on social media cancelling the festival because, he said, it was "no longer viable" but still hoped it would run in 2026. He said all ticket holders and vendors would receive refunds but BBC Wales was told only 24 people had bought tickets and all were refunded because their payments had been held by the ticketing company. Many traders are yet to get their money back.