On Sunday, Billy McFarland, the convicted conman and fraudster behind the infamous Fyre Festival in 2017, announced an upcoming sequel to the most famous party that never happened. Fresh off a six-year prison sentence for wire fraud, McFarland is advertising Fyre Festival 2.0, coming sometime next year—and despite the lack of a venue or a musical lineup, tickets are apparently selling out fast.
The historic failure of Fyre Festival 1.0 lives in infamy in the world of live entertainment. Alongside rapper Ja Rule, Billy McFarland presented the festival as a one-of-a-kind luxury experience that would feature the biggest names in music. The event was further promoted by celebrities and social media influencers, many of whom had secretly been paid for their endorsement. Tickets to Fyre Festival sold for hundreds of dollars apiece, and thousands of people planned to attend. However, when guests first began to arrive on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma in April 2017, the setup they found was a far cry from what McFarland had promised.
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Instead of luxurious private villas and gourmet dining, guests were met with small, quickly-assembled tents and prepackaged sandwiches. As more people began to arrive, the island’s underdeveloped infrastructure began to collapse, leading to widespread problems with security, sanitation, food and lodging, and medical services. Soon, headlining acts started pulling out of the event and guests were left stranded for days with nowhere to go.
Eventually, the event was canceled and attendees were encouraged to go home after being promised a full refund. McFarland and Ja Rule were hit with several class action lawsuits seeking more than $100 million in damages, and McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for mail and wire fraud in connection with the debacle.
But according to McFarland, who was released from prison last year, he developed a vision for Fyre Festival 2.0 during a seven-month stretch in solitary confinement—and now he hopes to succeed where he previously failed. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seventh-month stint in solitary confinement,” he said in a video posted to X on Sunday. “I wrote out this 50-page plan of how it would take this overall interest and demand in Fyre and how it would take my ability bring people from around the world together to make the impossible happen.”
https://twitter.com/pyrtbilly/status/1693408353844609156
The Fyre Festival website shows that the first 100 tickets have already sold out, with additional, increasingly more expensive tickets coming soon. Prices range from $799 to a staggering $7,999.
However, it is important to note that there has not been a single musical act announced for the festival, nor has a venue been determined. McFarland teased a location somewhere in the Caribbean but provided no further details. In the meantime, we’ll be doing pop-ups and events across the world,” he said. “Guys, this is your chance to get in. This is everything I’ve been working towards.”
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