If you read about — or, worse, attended — the Fyre Festival in 2017, you probably look back on the experience with revulsion. The fraudulent music festival, designed to jibe with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, was the subject of two documentaries released in 2019: Hulu’s “Fyre Fraud” and Netflix‘s “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened.”
The man behind Fyre was American businessman Billy McFarland, who ended up serving nearly four years in prison for wire fraud and being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars.
But now McFarland is a free man, and you’ll never guess what he’s up to. Can you say Fyre Festival 2?
Fyre2 is being billed as “an electrifying celebration of music, arts, cuisine, comedy, fashion, gaming, sports and treasure hunting… .” The description is dismayingly similar to the one promised for Fyre1.
According to the New York Times, high-end accommodations at Fyre1 had “included a $400,000 ‘Artist’s Palace,’ … boasting four bedrooms, eight V.I.P. tickets and dinner with one of the festival performers.” When guests arrived, however, what they found in place of the luxury villas was “disaster relief tents on a makeshift campground.”
As for the food, Fyre attendees were promised “a uniquely authentic island cuisine experience,” with “local seafood, Bahamian-style sushi, and even a pig roast.” What they were served instead was the gustatory equivalent of the relief tents.
Fyre2 is schedules to start on May 30 on Isla Mujeres, a Mexican island and vacation spot just off the coast of Cancun. More specifically, the event will be staged at “Playa FYRE,” according to the festival’s website. The Times reports that “a total of 2,000 tickets are now available, ranging in price from $1,400 to — wait for it — $1.1 million.” The $1.1 million ticket covers admission for eight attendees and the option of a four-stateroom yacht or a four-bedroom villa. Sound familiar?
Fyre2 as envisioned by its organizers as “for those who seek to rise above, who don’t just want to witness history but aspire to share it.”
Fool them once?
