The Fyre festival fiasco has been dominating the headlines all week, with what was advertised as a “transformative experience” on a remote island for rich millennials now notorious as an epic disaster.
At around $12,780 a ticket, let’s just say revellers were more than a little upset at the sight that greeted them upon arrival at the Bahamian islands. Images of guests being met with disaster relief tents in place of cabanas, fainting guests being locked in the airport without water and the now infamously depressing excuse of a cheese sandwich served up as dinner have been circulating the internet. You just literally couldn’t make this stuff up.
Questions on exactly what happened in the months building up to the festival to cause such a flop have until now been left answered for most, but news is now emerging on where exactly all the cash behind the “luxurious” festival got to and why the whole thing turned into a such a sick joke.
Firstly, it would seem that Billy McFarland, the 25 year old founder of the festival, didn’t take into consideration customs, and that little thing called customs tax, which is fundamental when importing goods into a country. This led to issues importing toilets and showers to the island, with reports of lone portable loos and no waste management facility on the island.
Reports have also emerged on a distinct lack of planning, and by that it has been stated that McFarland came up with the idea of the festival in October 2016 , giving only six months to construct an entire festival from scratch, with serious planning apparently not commencing until February 2017. Ambitious to say the least.
Where all the cash generated from ticket sales went is also now becoming clear. The fact that Kendall Jenner was paid £250,000 for one Instagram post on the festival may have had a slight something to do with the cash flow issues that occurred. It apparently did not stop there, with festival organisers and the world-famous models drafted in to advertise the festival via Instagram being flown to the site on private jets ahead of the launch, all expenses paid of course. Parties on nearby islands for the male employees within the Fyre management team and models all went ahead in the months leading up to the festival, according to Fyre employees who wish to remain anonymous, with large bills to pay at the end of it. In fact, a legal case is now underway as the Instagram posts violate Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations as it was at no point mentioned the models were being paid by the company to promote its event.
Failed contracts with catering companies and production teams also ensued due to warnings that a lack of time to plan such an event by the professionals not being taken into consideration by the organisers . Not only that but it has been claimed artists and staff from the festival are still to be paid. The festival website was even taken down as they had yet to receive payment from Fyre management. A huge expenditure ahead of the festival coupled with lower ticket sales than anticipated only added to the unraveling of the event.
It seems as though the ego of the management and founders behind the festival seriously got in the way of taking notice of the massive warning signs of the impending disaster. Co-founder Ja Rule’s twitter apology still didn’t serve much in the way of taking responsibility, with his actual tweet reading THIS ISN’T MY FAULT. Nice.
Although the whole scenario is laughable, a lot of people endured a pretty gruelling endeavour and wasted a lot of cash buying into what would seem to be an ego-driven idea of a few already wealthy people. With a $100,000 dollar law suit filed on Sunday from major defense attorney Mark Geragos things certainly aren’t looking good for the organisers from here, watch this space for more updates from GRM daily.