Is the Doomed Fyre Festival Making a Comeback?
In 2017, the Fyre Festival became infamous as a catastrophic mess that robbed investors of $26 million and ticketholders of over $100,000. After multiple lawsuits, a prison sentence, and two no-holds-barred documentaries, organizer Billy McFarland says he wants to bring the event back in 2025.
The first Fyre Festival event happened in April 2017. With tickets costing $12,000 and up, participants expected a premium music festival with luxurious accommodations, celebrity appearances, gourmet cuisine, and performances from A-list artists like Major Lazer and Blink-182.
Renowned models and influencers—including Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, Kendall Jenner, and Hailey Baldwin—helped promote the event.
What attendees got; however, was far from advertised. Around 5,000 festival-goers were made to stay in tents designed for disaster relief operations. Many of them didn’t have anywhere to sleep at all. The high-profile performances didn’t happen, people’s belongings got stolen, and cheese sandwiches in foam containers were served.
Instead of a remote getaway in the Bahamas, the festival venue was a parking lot in a resort that had been abandoned mid-construction.
It became known as one of the biggest music festival fails.
When McFarland recently announced his intention to spearhead Fyre Festival II, the news was understandably met with surprise. According to him, the upcoming event will happen from April 25 to 28, 2025 on a private Caribbean island near Mexico.
McFarland claims an unnamed production company has already obtained a 51% stake in Fyre Media, the company in charge of the festival’s operations and finances. This time, he’s promising a combination of music, exciting experiences, and extreme sports—and he won’t be involved in the logistics.
“If anybody sees me trying to install a bathroom, please run away fast because things have definitely gone wrong,” he quipped.
Describing Fyre Festival 2, he said, “My job is to create this turbulence where you are not sure if I am going to crash or land, but you will all have a front-row seat, and you won’t get hurt along the way.”
“I think if I can tell that story, we can create Fyre Festival 2 and make it a cultural moment as well. We are embracing the controversy and the turbulence,” McFarland concluded.
After the 2017 disaster, McFarland spent almost four years in prison for wire fraud charges. As he was being sentenced, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald contradicted McFarland’s efforts at minimizing the incident. “Mr. McFarland is a fraudster and not simply a misguided young man,” she said.
