The long, pathetic, sordid, criminal saga of Billy McFarland and the Fyre Festival came to an ignominious end Tuesday afternoon at precisely 12:44:11 pm EST when the convicted fraudster unloaded the brand and all trademarks related to the ill-fated musical festival on eBay for $245,300.
McFarland still owes $26 million in restitution related to his wire fraud conviction, so he’s going to have to keep scrounging around to raise the remaining $25,754,700.
For those of you with no memory of 2017 and somehow missed Hulu’s Fyre Fraud and Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, the Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury musical festival on an island in the Bahamas with lineup that included Blink-182, Pusha T, Tyga, Desiigner, Major Lazer, Disclosure, and Migos.
But when fans arrived at the festival site, they were greeted with little more than dinky tents, grounds that resembled a refugee camp, and cheese sandwiches. It turned out that McFarland and his investors, including rapper Ja Rule, didn’t have the money, means, or experience to stage the event. A wave of lawsuits followed, and McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison.
McFarland was released in 2022 and immediately started to plan a second Fyre Festival. “We have the chance to embrace this storm and really steer our ship into all the chaos that has happened,” he told NBC. “And if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry.”
Unsurprisingly, McFarland had absolutely no ability to deliver on that promise. This time around, however, the plug was pulled long before any guests arrived. In the aftermath, he decided to cut his losses and forever part ways with the brand.
“This brand is bigger than any one person,” Mr. McFarland said in a statement on Instagram. “It’s clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently.”
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It’s unclear who bought it, but they now own the Fyre Festival brand name, the social media accounts, “comprehensive marketing assets,” the domain names, “artist & talent relationships,” an “extensive media coverage archive,” and “access to the core team (optional).”
This poses a few questions. First off, how exactly can “artist and talent relationships” be sold? And weren’t those relationships forever poisoned by the historic debacles of the past? It’s hard to imagine that Blink-182’s team sees this as a solid relationship. They won’t exactly be like, “A random person bought the Fyre Festival. We’re obligated by the terms of an Ebay listing to work with them on their next endeavor, even though we were humiliated and stiffed out of money eight years ago by the original team.”
Secondly, it’s nice to see that access to McFarland and Ja Rule is optional, but is that really a selling point? They haven’t proven themselves very adept at putting on this particular festival. Someone is going to give them a third attempt with their own money on the line?
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Finally, what exactly is this media archive? Is it linked to online articles documenting the collapse of the festival, the lawsuits that followed, and the pathetic attempt to stage a second one? Did they make a scrapbook of the print articles? These are assets?
As we await answers, it’s good to know that the Fyre Festival dream isn’t dead. It’s now in the hands of somebody else with $245,300 to spare. We look forward to seeing what they do with it.
