Fyre Festival

Aside from the United States’ mishandling of the coronavirus, the Fyre Festival (2017) is the biggest shitshow of my time. This sorry excuse for a music festival landed Fyre Media CEO Billy McFarland behind bars for two separate counts of fraud. McFarland and business partner, Ja Rule, promised a once-in-a-lifetime experience amongst up-and-coming talents, self-proclaimed influencers, and ~5,000 well-endowed millenials. Festival goers shelled out tens of thousands of (nonrefundable) dollars for two “transformative” weekends in the Bahamas, “on the boundaries of the impossible.”

Fyre’s marketing team was unmatched. People bought tickets faster than you can say “Bush did 9/11.” The promotional video featured Hollywood’s A-listers having a grand ‘ole time on an island once owned by Pablo Escobar. The website advertised eco-friendly domes and luxury villas, but as one festival attendee tweeted, “There (were) no villas, just a disaster tent city.” Attendees were also promised a culinary experience, so imagine the shock that befell the masses when festival staff passed out (…cheese?) sandwiches and two-ingredient salads. For me, it’s the influencers who leveraged their fame to promote for an event that never happened. (Kendall Jenner paid out $90K in settlements, though $90K is but a slap on the wrist to a family whose collective net worth exceeds $1 billion!)

“That’s not fraud. That is, uh, I would call that false advertising.”

– Ja Rule

No event of such scale unfolds perfectly to plan. Even when shit hits the fan, one thing is certain: The show goes on. But the Fyre Fiasco is one of two times that the show did NOT go on, the other time being Zoey 101’s tragic ending following Jamie Lynn Spear’s unexpected pregnancy. Fyre sold tickets to more people than they could house, and the resulting chaos that ensued is best described as a “Lord of the Flies-esque” free-for-all. As night fell, festivalgoers fell victim to mass hysteria, and then came the lootin’ and hollerin.’ And if the age of imperialism taught us anything, it’s Loot Or Be Looted.

Watch FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened on Netflix for the receipts.