OTTAWA — Ottawa Police are investigating the theft of more than $600,000 in proceeds from last weekend’s Escapade Music Festival, the Citizen has learned.

Police were expected to issue a warrant Wednesday for Nick Vachon, 26, one of the founding partners of DNA Presents, the company that staged the two-day festival. Vachon has not been seen or heard from since early Monday morning, when the proceeds from the festival’s ticket and alcohol sales were discovered missing.

A safe at Ottawa Stadium, the festival venue, was found empty early that morning by other DNA partners. It is believed that more than $600,000 is missing.

“I am heartbroken,” said Michael O’Farrell, one of five partners in the company.

“This just crushed us, we can’t believe it. We had such a great event and now this happened. I don’t even know how to cope with it right now,” said O’Farrell.

About 15,000 people attended the electronic music festival over its two days at the baseball stadium. Organizers said the festival was a big success and were basking in the glory from staging a problem-free event that attracted thousands of electronic dance music fans and received good media coverage.

Single-day tickets were $99 while a two-day V.I.P. festival pass was $219.

O’Farrell said he went to Ottawa Stadium with his accountant and a representative from the stadium Monday morning to collect the cash.

“We went there to finalize our accounting and we opened up the vault and it was empty. At first we thought it was maybe a misunderstanding and that our partner would have taken the money for safekeeping,” he said.

“But as time went on we went to his hotel room and saw that he wasn’t there, and went to his apartment and saw that he wasn’t there, we realized it was more serious than we thought.”

He said they then filed a report with Ottawa police.

O’Farrell said he has been a partner in DNA Presents with Vachon for about five years, and the three other partners, Ali Shafee, Aydin Kharaghani and Nick Orphanos came on board about two years ago. DNA Presents has staged several club shows around town, including Deadmau5 and the Electric Tulip Show at the CE Centre. The company also worked with Ottawa Bluesfest organizers to arrange electronic music acts for the festival, which began Wednesday night.

The recently concluded Escapade Music Festival was in its third year of operation. Last year it was staged on a smaller scale and held at a parking lot on George Street.

This year’s festival was originally to be held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum but only two weeks ago organizers moved it to the Ottawa Stadium out of concerns about traffic congestion.

“I’ve known Nick for a very long time and I kind of almost grew up with him in Gatineau,” said O’Farrell. He said Vachon is single and his family lives in Gatineau.

O’Farrell said he was “disheartened” because he has lost trust in Vachon, a once valued partner in the company.

“Any other partner we trust 100 per cent. When you have a partner in a company there is no reason why you shouldn’t trust the person. If you can’t trust the person they shouldn’t be your partner,” he said.