On February 25, 2025, the Today Show aired a segment about the return of the “Fyre Festival”, a once failed luxury music festival that was supposed to take place back in 2017. Billy McFarland, an American businessman whose enterprises are characterized by fraud, along with American rapper Ja Rule, created the campaign for this festival to promote their new app that books musical talent called “Fyre”. The festival was originally created to promote their app and was scheduled to take place April 28-30 and May 5-7, 2017, on the island of Great Exuma. Celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Emily Ratajkowski, and Bella Hadid were paid to promote the Fyre Festival on their social media platforms, with a link to buy tickets for the festival included in their advertisement.
The deep controversy of the first attempt of the Fyre festival has many different parts. The first controversial choice made by McFarland was when he chose the venue for the festival. McFarland and Ja Rule visited an island called Norman’s Cay, formerly owned by members of The Medellin Cartel led by Pablo Escabar. McFarland leased the Island from the owners, who gave McFarland a strict rule to not mention that the island was affiliated with Pablo Escabar. McFarland blatantly disregarded that rule, announcing to the public that the island of Norman’s Cay was once owned by Pablo Escabar himself–which was false. The lease was immediately revoked for McFarland and the Fyre company, forcing them to find a new venue just four months before the festival was scheduled to take place. McFarland’s team was scrambling to secure an alternative venue, and with just two months left until the kickoff of the festival, they secured a venue in the Bahamas called Great Exuma. Great Exuma was not a private nor remote island, but the festival venue was still being advertised as such on social media, with it also still being incorrectly promoted as Pablo Escabar’s island.
The next controversy was that the amount of money that Fyre was originally going to put into the festival was not nearly enough to provide the experience that they were promising all of their ticket holders. The entire event was going to cost over $10 million, but the company only had $4 million. They provided camping white tents with dirt floors instead of the homes that they had promised, soaking wet mattresses, and mediocre food like cheese sandwiches served in foam containers. The original catering budget that McFarland provided was $6 million, but it was slashed down to $1 million due to losing all of the major performing acts including Tyga, Blink- 182, Major Lazer, Migos, and more only a few days before the festival. Reports from the festival mentioned various other problems–these included the mishandling or theft of guests’ baggage; no electricity; an unfinished gravel lot; a lack of medical personnel and event staff; no cell phone or internet service; insufficient portable toilets; no running water; and heavy-handed security.
The morning after all of the guests arrived, the festival was announced as postponed. Everyone was instructed to go to the airport and go back home with either a full refund or a VIP ticket for the next attempt at the Fyre Festival. Flights were reportedly too full and were delayed in the Bahamas, leaving many festival guests stranded until they could finally return back home. Mcfarland was later arrested for wire fraud connected to the Fyre festival and he served six years in federal prison: two of them being added onto his sentence due to committing wire fraud while being on bail.
Fast forwarding to 2025, the Today Show did an interview with McFarland regarding the announcement of Fyre Festival 2: Taking place from May 30th to June 2nd in Isla of Mujeres, only 2000 tickets are available that cost anywhere from $1,400 to 1.1 million dollars. Many are concerned that the same issues are going to occur again, but during the interview it was made clear that an event coordinator has been hired and McFarland is not taking care of the details. He stated that “Fyre 2 is really not about the past, or about me, it’s about the vision–which is strong.” McFarland also talks about many attractions at this festival that he wants to be included, such as yachts, A-list musical performers, and MMA fighters. But when he was asked if any of these acts were booked, he stated, “I’m not in charge of booking the talent, but I am hoping so.” The Today Show did confirm that every partner within Fyre Festival 2 that Mcfarland spoke about was an actual partner. Knowing that Mcfarland is not in charge of the festival and all of the luxurious details will be handled by many different companies and organizations, there is hope that Fyre Festival 2 will avoid the catastrophe that was the attempt of the first Fyre Fest.
Photo courtesy of globalnews.ca.com, edmtunes.com, and rivieramayanews.mx.com