This story is just too juicy to ignore. I know I try to stay local with my stuff, but have you read where the should-be-ashamed-of-himself-but-never-seems-to-be, Billy McFarland, the ‘brains’ (or could we say ‘scams’?) behind the infamous Fyre Festival, has now confirmed that the plans for Fyre 2 have been officially scrapped? But Billy is still putting the festival’s name up for sale.
As if anyone would want it (but I’m sure somebody will).
You might recall, and if you don’t I refer you to two great docs Hulu’s Fyre Fraud, and Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened about McFarland proposed exclusive luxury experience he had set to happen on a luscious Caribbean island, featuring top musical acts and celebrity guests. This is the one where Billy F. enlisted a whole bunch of influencers (that’s still a word that makes me chuckle the way it is used presently) models, even partnering with Ja Rule to push his get-together where the attendees certainly got got.
Performers like Blink-182 and Migos knew enough to pull away, guests arrived and found their accommodations far from the 5-star suites they had been offered and instead had to buckle down in tents. (one of the doc’s famous scenes is of a posted pic of the cheese sandwiches in polystyrene boxes that the guests got instead of their promised gourmet meals). And people were stuck at an overrun airport trying to get home. McFarland was convicted of wire fraud and spent four years in prison but as any good cockroach, he tried to sell Fyre 2.
(He also still owes $26 million in restitution).
Now he is peddling someone to buy the brand name he feels is so lucrative. As he says: “Over the past two years, we’ve poured everything into bringing Fyre back with honesty, transparency, relentless effort, and creativity. We’ve taken the long road to rebuilding trust. We rebuilt momentum. And we proved one thing without a doubt: Fyre is one of the most powerful attention engines in the world.”
Really Billy, powerful? Come on dude! The fact that anyone gave credence to another Fyre (or what you ever say again) just shows how dumb people are and how needy some super-rich kids are for exclusive experiences they can tweet about.
I can’t wait for Fyre 3.
