Remember Fyre Festival? That cursed, shambolic, millennial-fleecing shit-show, which promised to deliver a luxurious, immersive music festival "on the boundaries of the impossible" in the Bahamas in 2017, but ended with zero artists performing, panicked guests fighting for sub-Guantanamo Bay lodgings and food scraps, festival producer Andy King being encouraged to perform fellatio to obtain water and promoter Billy McFarland getting sentenced to six years in jail after defrauding investors of $27.4 million?
That was a right hoot, wasn't it?
Well, 13 months on from his March 2022 release from a federal prison after serving four of his six year sentence, Billy McFarland has revealed that a sequel to this epic bin-fire is in the works.
“Fyre Festival II is finally happening," McFarland tweeted yesterday, April 10. "Tell me why you should be invited.”
🔥 Fyre Festival II is finally happening.Tell me why you should be invited.April 10, 2023
What an opportunity.
It's possible that if you don't live your life on social media, nothing you have read here will make any sense at all. So here's a quick recap. Promoted by glossy adverts on social shared by popular models/actresses/reality TV stars including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, the original Fyre Festival was billed as a two weekend high-end music festival like no other, and booked to take place on the island of Great Exuma on the weekends of April 28-30 and May 5-7, 2017.
The brainchild of Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, the event advertised appearances from Blink-182, Major Lazer, Skepta, Disclosure, Pusha T and more, with tickets costing up to $100,000. Music, sunshine and the chance to gloat at the jealous peasants who couldn't afford this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a paltry $100,000? Take our money now!
FYRE Festival 2.0 🔥Who’s in??Let’s go 💦💦 https://t.co/qKqYrIkXsjApril 10, 2023
As you may have suspected, things did not go according to plan, if indeed there ever was anything resembling 'a plan' for the festivities. Listing exactly how badly Fyre Festival failed to deliver the experiences it promised would take hours, so let's just say that basically everything that could go wrong over the weekend, went wrong. So wrong, that social media posts documenting the fraudulent fiasco became the stuff of legend, and had The Internet enrapt and in hysterics.
For the full horrific details, you could watch one of both of the two compelling and hilarious documentaries that were made about the non-event, Netflix's Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019) and Hulu's Fyre Fraud (2017).
Anyways, that was then and this is now, so who knows, maybe Fyre Fest II will be a massive success, and become legendary as one of the greatest cultural events ever staged, an inspirational touchstone for generations to come and a powerful illustration of humankind's ability to learn from setbacks and rise anew in triumph and glory.
Yeah, that's probably what will happen.
