If FEMA tents and cold cheese sandwiches are your idea of fun, Fyre Festival II might be right up your alley.
Billy McFarland, the fraudster creator of the infamous failed Fyre Festival, has announced he is already selling tickets to the event’s second try.
Despite there being no official date, musical line-up or even a location — save for the fact Fyre Festival II will apparently take place “in the Caribbean” — the first 100 tickets have allegedly already sold out. The tickets were priced at US$499 (more than C$575) each. The event is expected to take place at “the end of 2024,” according to the festival’s website.
In a video posted to social media on Sunday, McFarland said he developed a 50-page plan for the festival during a stint in solitary confinement. McFarland was placed in solitary confinement in 2020 after he participated in a podcast and discussed his crimes while in prison.
McFarland served nearly four years in prison on fraud-related charges to do with the initial Fyre Festival in 2017.
“It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seventh-month stint in solitary confinement,” McFarland said in the announcement. He appeared wearing AirPods and a white bathrobe in the close-up video.
“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.”
The Fyre Festival II website advertises six other upcoming ticket pre-sales, with prices ranging from US$799 (almost C$1,080) to US$7,999 (about C$10,845).
On Tuesday, McFarland claimed the first 100 Fyre Festival II tickets had been purchased.
“FYRE is about people from the around the world coming together to pull off the impossible,” McFarland wrote. “This time we have incredible support. I’ll be doing what I love while working with the best logistical and infrastructure partners.”
McFarland said all ticket sale revenue will be held in escrow until the date of Fyre Festival is announced.
McFarland first announced the return of Fyre Festival in April, nearly one year after he was released from prison in May 2022. He was jailed after he pleaded guilty in 2018 to defrauding about 80 festival investors.
Originally marketed as a two-weekend-long luxury music festival on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas, Fyre Festival and McFarland were outed as frauds when festivalgoers were met with less than suitable conditions in 2017.
Upon arrival, the 5,000 ticketholders were told all of the festival’s headlining musicians had already pulled out of the lineup. The gourmet food they’d been promised turned into below-subpar cheese sandwiches and the luxury accommodation was revealed to be FEMA disaster tents.
A tweet showing the cheese sandwiches served to Fyre Festival attendees in 2017.
Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection
The festival was co-founded and marketed by rapper Ja Rule, who had influencers like Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski and Hailey Bieber promote the event. (Ja Rule later said he was also scammed by McFarland and was subsequently dismissed from a US$100-million class-action lawsuit.)
As part of his 2018 prison sentence, McFarland was ordered to pay back the US$26 million he’d defrauded from investors.
Both McFarland and Ja Rule have publicly apologized for the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival.
On top of launching Fyre Festival II, McFarland also claimed to have a documentary and a Broadway musical about Fyre Festival currently in the works — exactly what everyone is clamouring for.
On social media, folks couldn’t resist poking fun at McFarland and Fyre Festival II, with many voicing warranted concerns that the second event could also be a scam.
NBC News reporter Mike Sington said the launch of Fyre Festival II “just proves there’s a sucker born every minute.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Sarah Do Couto
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