Fyre Festival is back and pre-ticket have sold out, according to its embattled founder
Aug 22, 2023, 6:45 PM | Updated: 6:46 pm
William 'Billy' McFarland, organizer of the Fyre Festival, is pictured here in New York in 2017. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
(Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
(CNN) — Founder of the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival Billy McFarland appears ready for round two.
McFarland, who served time in federal prison for crimes related to his involvement in the 2017 fest that fell apart in grand fashion, announced on his Instagram page on Sunday that tickets for “Fyre Festival 2” are now on sale, and on Tuesday he updated via his social media that the first batch of tickets were already sold out.
“It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seven-month stint in solitary confinement,” he said in his video on Sunday, going on to say that he’d written a 50-page plan outlining how he’d “make the impossible happen.”
Fyre Festival 2, according to McFarland, is heading to the Caribbean sometime toward the end of 2024, but no specific date or any musical headlining acts have been announced yet.
“Since 2016 FYRE has been the most talked about festival in the world. We now saw this convert to one of the highest priced GA pre-sales in the industry,” he wrote in his Tuesday update, adding that he’s working with “the best logistical and infrastructure partners” this time around.
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He also specified that revenue from ticket sales “will be held in escrow until the final date is announced.”
The Fyre Festival in 2017 notoriously unfolded as a complete disaster after it was heavily promoted by social media influencers as a luxurious weekend in paradise where attendees would rub shoulders with celebrities, eat top-notch food and see performances by artists such as Blink 182, Migos and Major Lazer.
But when attendees – who’d spent thousands of dollars on tickets – arrived on the Bahamian island of Exumas, they were met with mass disorganization, half-built tents, and catered food that was little more than limp cheese sandwiches.
Many of the musicians who were expected to perform ended up backing out of the festival because of the chaotic planning.
In 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and making false statements to federal law enforcement, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York confirmed to CNN at the time.
Prosecutors said in a statement at the time that McFarland defrauded Fyre Festival investors and ticket vendors of about $26 million, and that he’d participated in a separate “sham ticket scheme” in which he sold bogus tickets to fashion, music and sporting events while out on bail.
McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after serving nearly four years of his six-year sentence.
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