The Fyre Festival

The Netflix documentary Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party That Never Happened recaps the act of the infamous scam artist Billy McFarland. Before the festival fell apart, many had invested and worked with him because of his drive and charismatic personality.

McFarland and his company Fyre Media wanted to host “a luxury music festival” for influencers and wealthy people alike. They hired A-List celebrities to promote the festival and to show interest including Kylie Jenner.

McFarland had “ purchased” the island of Norman’s Cay in The Bahamas, which allegedly was the private island of the notorious narcotics dealer, Pablo Escobar. Their budget for promotion was a large chunk of the companies 26 million dollar budget, and tickets to the event could cost anywhere between $500 to a $1,000 dollars. This was in addition to the cost of food, drink, reserved cabanas, and access to yachts.

However, the festival never happened. Or rather it did, but failed spectacularly.

Mainly because it is nearly impossible to plan an entire music festival, in the bahamas, in 12 months. Plus, the entire budget for Fyre Festival was either stolen or embezzled money. This was the work of the conartist behind it all, Billy McFarland.

According to his associates, whenever Fyres budget would begin to run low, McFarland would fly back to New York City and return in two days with millions of dollars. Most of the workers who set up the Fyre Festival never got paid, a majority of who were islanders who skipped their jobs to help McFarland for the promise of a big paycheck. The media teams also never got paid, but rather, were sued by fans who were “tricked” by the celebrity endorsements.

McFarland was sued by countless people who bought tickets to the festival and never experienced the “ luxury music festival” as promised. On October 11, 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to forfeit US $26 million for wire fraud. He is currently in a Federal Correctional Institution in New York.

The way that influencers promote ads has changed completely because of this event. They must explicitly state that the post is an ad, and mention or tag the company or product directly in the post. Sponsored material now also much be approved by the brand or company before the post is made. Since the release of the Netflix documentary, many other news outlets and producers have sought to tell this story through their own lens. A movie titled Fyre Fraud came out on Hulu in January of this year and it tells a first hand, behind the scenes look at the economic disaster and unraveling of the Fyre Festival.

This story has been popular since it broke because it's unsettling how much positive attention Fyre Festival received from major social media celebrities and how well Billy McFarland was at scamming people for money. It really puts it into perspective how easy it is to fall for a scam and end up losing your life savings. Unfortunately this is what happened to many who invested with McFarland.

It's easy to identify a scam when the artist is a prince, but when it's a trusted colleague, it's almost impossible to tell.