The Fyre Festival, as it was advertised, was a two-weekend music festival that was supposed to take place on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas. The event was widely promoted by celebrities including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski. It was organized by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule. Prior to the festival, the showrunners experienced a wide variety of setbacks. And when the guests began to arrive, it was clear that the festival was not going to be the ultra-ritzy, fun getaway they were promised.
Now, Fyre Fest LLC has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Fyre Fest allegedly promised repayments of $530,000 for investors’ investment in the festival. Fyre Fest was supposed to pay by May, but investors never got the money.
The Fyre Fest Fiasco
Guests paid at least $1,500 each for tickets to the swanky music festival. Advertising for the festival showed private jets, plush cabanas and gourmet meals, but the conditions at the festival were vastly below expectations. Guests were quick to upload photos and videos of the festival’s poor conditions to social media, stirring up a hornet’s nest of public outcry.
For a music festival, the lineup was fairly bare. The night prior to the festival, the first headlining band, Blink-182, pulled out of the festival. In the end, only one band went onstage, a group of local musicians.
Afterwards, the people running the festival informed guests that they were postponing it. They waited for hours in airports as flight delays, terrible customer service and several other problems haunted them. Guests suffered without food, water, bathrooms or air conditioning. At least one person passed out from the heat. Some compared the situation on the island to the books “Lord of the Flies” and “The Hunger Games.”
The company faces over a dozen lawsuits, and police arrested the head of the company for wire fraud.
