In December, beachside Instagrams of famous swimsuit models began pushing a new event in the Bahamas called Fyre Festival, purporting to be “the cultural experience of the decade.” Kendall Jenner made good on such audacious claims in her own (undoubtedly sponsored) Instagram posts the following month, claiming that the festival would be headlined by artists from her brother-in-law Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music: Pusha T, Tyga, and Desiigner. For the one-percenters, itseemed, the FOMO appeal of Coachella had relocated to tropical paradise.
The less glamorous truth was widely disseminated, again, over social media. Late last week, on the eve of the festival’s first of two scheduled weekends, attendees who’d forked over upwards of a grand complained about campsites in chaos, whose “geodesic domes” instead drew comparisons to disaster relief tents. Rumblings of something truly ridiculous under foot came after Blink-182, of all bands, canceled. Then the festival was “postponed” before being “fully postponed.” By the time Fyre co-founder Ja Rulesemi-apologized and his partner—serially questionable entrepreneur Billy McFarland—admitted their naivety, the duo’s hoped-for island getaway had already reached immortality as a schadenfreude-soaked meme. Fyre, it turned out, was easy to burn.
Thankfully, as Ja Rule made a point to note over the weekend, all of the expected thousands who’d made it to the island were safe. Foolishly, McFarland has announced plans to try the festival again in 2018, albeit at a U.S. beach venue. (For the record, the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has defended the infrastructure on the island of Great Exuma.) Organizers said Ja Rule and McFarland “simply weren’t ready” to realize their festival vision. Meanwhile, Twitter-happy festival attendees and bitterly exultant ex-employees got their 15 minutes of fame, and a too-hilarious-to-be-true social-media pic showing two pieces of bread masquerading as VIP meals turned out to be not exactly true. Now, a $100 million lawsuit has popped up, claiming the festival “was closer to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies than Coachella.” Even the lawyers are getting in on the flaming-hot takedowns.
Representatives for Fyre, which started out as as an entertainment booking app, haven’t responded to numerous emails for comment. Reached by phone, Fyre Festival’s chief marketing officer Grant Margolin deferred all questions to email via FyreApp.com before hanging up, never to respond to calls or voicemails again. Even after speaking with sources knowledgeable about Fyre in particular or the live music business generally, many questions linger. “This story is by no means over,” says Mark Geragos, the lawyer behind the lawsuit seeking class action status against Fyre. Despite all the attention from media both social and otherwise, these are still the major unknowns from the Fyre fiasco.
Why did festival organizers take so long to realize their problems?
Since being savaged on social media, Fyre’s team has admitted to being in over their heads in trying to mount a destination festival, on an island, while handling transportation and lodging themselves—all for the first time. Their greenness is also evident in their expectations of turning a profit, which concert industry executives say usually isn’t feasible for a first-time festival.
Why Fyre waited to acknowledge their inability to live up to extravagant promises until attendees had arrived, however, seems the most egregious mistake of all. “Again and again they kept on saying, ‘We’re ready to party,’” the booking agent says. Around 1:30 a.m. on day one of the festival (April 28), the agent said an email from Fyre insisted, “The festival isn’t canceled. We’re ready to party.” Another source told me: “The cancellation is consistent with their communication, in that it seems to have happened at the very last minute with contradictory statements coming from their team.”
“The minute you start realizing you’re not going to deliver what people expect, you pull the plug—and you do it early,” says Dan Berkowitz, the founder/CEO of CID Entertainment, which is now in its fourth year offering music destination events in Mexico. Short of blaming poor weather, Fyre has yet to explain why they didn’t say something before things melted down. “Even the festival site itself does not compare to what people were sold on,” says Niko Seizov, manager for Fur Coat, a Barcelona duo who learned about the festival’s postponement 10 minutes after boarding a transatlantic flight to Miami.
How will they pay for refunds, or that $100 million lawsuit?
Fyre has been promising refunds, but with what money is another question. “If they sold the tickets legitimately through Ticketmaster or Ticketfly, there should be no problem getting their money back,” says veteran NYC concert promoter John Scher. “One of the safest parts of doing anything in the entertainment industry is if you use a legitimate ticketing company, then you know you’re going to be protected and you know the customer is going to be protected.” However, Tablelist, an app for getting into nightclubs, announced earlier this year that it would be “exclusively providing the VIP packages, ticketing, and venue management” for Fyre Festival. (Tablelist hasn’t responded to requests for comment.)
Then there’s the matter of the lawsuit. Insurance can handle that, right? Probably not. “I would tend to doubt they have $100 million worth of coverage,” says Peter Tempkins, a concert-insurance veteran whose clients have ranged from AC/DC to Bonnaroo. “So if they’re even covered by insurance, there’s probably not enough to cover the claims.”
Ticketing agencies can also sometimes advance money to event organizers—funds that can also be used to pay the artists’ guarantees. “If they used the ticket money to pay the artists, where are they going to get the money to pay back the ticket holders?” Tempkins wonders. Then again, Fyre’s website promises free 2018 VIP passes for all of this year’s festival-goers, which seems about as economically feasible as throwing a festival in the Bahamas when you have no idea what you’re doing.
Wait, so where did Fyre get the money to pay performers then?
That’s still unclear. In early April, the Wall Street Journal’s sources said Ja Rule and McFarland paid out of their own pockets, though the same sources also said Fyre was seeking outside investors to help cover costs. It’s not clear how Ja Rule or a twenty-something whose previous customers already wanted their money back would have enough cash on hand for Fyre’s top-heavy lineup.
Indeed, the festival ran into delays in paying some of the 35 acts on the bill, but the money seems to have come through eventually. “They gave us our first deposit with a little pressure—after some time, but we’re fully paid as of three weeks or a month ago,” says a booking agent whose company had performers playing Fyre, who asked not to be named in connection with the festival. A performer in the Bahamas for the event also confirmed payment, describing the trip as a surprise paid holiday.
If the money trail leads someplace besides the founders’ wallets, the tale could grow only more complicated, especially in the event of a potential bankruptcy. Geragos, the lawyer suing the festival, told me, “Apparently there were bags of cash that were used at a number of locations.” Meanwhile, vendors may not have all been paid, the Ministry of Tourism suggested in its statement.
What exactly are Fyre Festival and the Bahamian government beefing over?
Billed as being on a private island once owned by Pablo Escobar, in reality Fyre was set up on the decidedly non-private island of Great Exuma. Fyre organizers and the tourism agency for the Bahamas have been trading competing statements lately. “The Exumas didn't have a really great infrastructure,” McFarland said. “There wasn't water or sewage.” But the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism was quick with a rebuttal: “The infrastructure on Great Exuma is second to none,” countered the ministry’s director general, Joy Jibrilu. “The island has potable water, water and sewerage, Internet and cable television services, an electricity plant, a waste management system, a mini hospital, police officers, a local government, and border patrol officers.”
McFarland wasn’t always at odds with local authorities, writing in a blog post a few weeks ago that the festival was working with the Bahamian government. A former statement on Bahamas.com said the Ministry of Tourism fully endorses the festival, and that “local authorities have been working hard over the last months.” Why was that statement deleted, and what did that endorsement really mean? More importantly, are there tax reasons—i.e. financial benefits—to having an event in the Bahamas that have gone overlooked in all the social-media hilarity? Representatives from the Ministry of Tourism haven’t responded to my request for comment.
How would Fyre even mount a 2018 festival?
The idea of a Fyre do-over at a U.S. location may be just as naïve as the 2017 edition. “I’d say with all the negative press and the class action lawsuit that was announced, they’d be insane to give this another shot,” the booking agent tells me. “I can’t see my agency working with them again, given their current track record, and it'd be safe to assume that others would feel the same way. Beyond this, I can’t see how prospective attendees would trust in them again. Overall, it’s rather clear the promoters are a bit out of touch with reality if they think they can pull this off again.”