Guests had been promised private planes, jet-skis, gourmet food and two weekends of live performances when they headed to the first outing of Fyre Festival in 2017 on Exuma in The Bahamas
Optimistic punters have started buying up tickets to Fyre Festival II, despite the event having no location and costing $8,000.
Seven years ago the world watch on in schadenfreude-tinged awe as the most joyfully catastrophic event unfolded. What had been billed as a high-end festival on an island once owned by Pablo Escabar and promoted by a series of influencer rich promo videos, turned out to be a disaster. Guests had been promised private planes, jet-skis, gourmet food and two weekends of live performances.
Those who had forked out thousands of dollars to twerk alongside the great-and-good on Exuma in The Bahamas arrived to find the island unfit for the hoards of revellers. Instead of the gourmet meals and luxury villas, they received packaged sandwiches and were lodged in poorly furnished tents. Acts such as Blink 182 and models due to appear backed out at the last minute.
Last year founder Billy McFarland, who was released from prison in 2022 for defrauding investors following the festival, published a 50-page business plan explaining how he plans to resurrect the event. He announced its return would come late in 2024, but offered little else in terms of solid information.
A year on and McFarland has revealed more details about the event – but not many. He has said that Fyre Festival II will be held in the Caribbean sometime near the end of 2024. No specific dates, locations or the festival’s much-anticipated lineup have been announced.
McFarland insists the event will go ahead and that the first tickets have been sold. Prices start at $499 (£379) and rise to $7,999 (£6,077).
The American told the Wall Street Journal that an unnamed production company has purchased a 51 percent stake in the festival’s parent company, Fyre Media, and that it will be responsible for the festival’s finances and operations. McFarlane says he is working with a talent management company and a US festival operator, with the only part he is leading being marketing and events promotion.
The location of the event is yet to be announced, with the official website only mentioning that it’ll be in ‘the Caribbean’. In July McFarlane told the WSJ that scouts were looking at Honduras, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and Panama as possible destinations.
Despite not knowing where it will be and being aware of how disastrous Fyre Festival I was, tickets have already been sold. In August 2023, 22-year-old Cooper Sinkiawic and his girlfriend bought two of the first 100 VIP tickets to Fyre Festival II for $549.89 each. He showed the receipts of the purchase to the WSJ, the publication reported.
As well as access to the festival and any lead-up Fyre Fest II events, the tickets get you into a private Telegram group chat with McFarland.
Whether or not the festival happens and, if it does, is a success, remains unclear. The first outing caused more than $26m in losses when it was cancelled over inadequate accommodation, food and water, the Guardian reported. Ja Rule – who was involved in the organisation – was cleared of wrongdoing over the Fyre festival disaster in 2019, a year after McFarland was jailed.
“Fyre II has to work,” McFarland said. “I want 90 percent of the people saying, ‘This is not real, it’s never going to happen,’ ” McFarland says. “We’re betting that it’s going to make the 10 percent who can afford it to be like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to show them.’ I think the second everybody thinks it’s obvious that it’s going to be good, no one wants to go anymore.”
In terms of how else it might differ from the first event, he added: “Karate combat on the beach, I think that would be amazing,” McFarland said. “Having some extreme sports, having some comedy and some fashion.”
Shortly after he first got out of prison McFarland said Fyre Fest would take place again, claiming the idea came to him during a stint in solitary confinement. He told his followers on social media: “This is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s f***ing go.”
The Mirror has contacted McFarland for comment.