ICYMI, the Fyre Festival, which was promoted by the likes of Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid and was supposed to be a weekend vacay in the sun, has actually turned out to be a complete and utter disaster. After paying upwards of $1,000 for tickets to a festival where most of the performers cancelled before the weekend even began, attendees showed up to find no food, minimal security and, you know, feral dogs.
It’s official, this #fyrefestival meme wins them all. pic.twitter.com/wbTwbzySAB
— This is Ash Stephens (@_TheAshStephens) April 29, 2017
Understandably, the Fyre Festival and Billy McFarland, the man behind the whole mess, had some apologizing to do – so they did, kind of.
The long-winded and somewhat odd apology begins, “Yesterday was a very challenging day for all of us. But we would like to fully explain what happened.” (Ya think?)
The statement goes on the explain that organizers Billy McFarland and Ja Rule wanted to create a musical festival experience based on their mutual love for, “technology, the ocean, and rap music.” (Their words, not mine.) Of course, they weren’t, “ready for how big this thing would get,” and that’s where the trouble apparently started.
“Suddenly, they found themselves transforming a small island and trying to build a festival,” the statement says. “Thousands of people wanted to come. They were excited, but then the roadblocks started popping up. As amazing as the islands are, the infrastructure for a festival of this magnitude needed to be built from the ground up. So, we decided to literally attempt to build a city. We set up water and waste management, brought an ambulance from New York, and chartered 737 planes to shuttle our guests via 12 flights a day from Miami. We thought we were ready, but then everyone arrived.”
Okay, sorry, but based on the photos and tweets from the ground, how could you possibly look at the island where the festival was to be held and be like, “Yep, looks great!”? What caused Fyre to think it was even remotely a good idea to move forward with this?
In any case, according to the apology, the support from the musical community has been “overwhelming,” and the company plans to move the postponed festival to the United States for 2018, refund all guests and give them free VIP tickets to the 2018 festival – the jury’s still out on whether they’ll actually go.