I am sure most of you all heard of Coachella, Bonnaroo, or Broccoli Festival. If not, they are events that last over a few days and feature a great amount of artists that we all listen to on a daily. Fyre Festival was supposed to be a very luxurious festival that was exclusive and was headlined by artists like Major Lazer, Migos, Lil Yachty, etc. in 2017. Cabanas, yachts, catered food, jet skies and so much more was promised to the expected 6,000 plus guests that were expected to appear. However, things slowly took a turn for the worst.
Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule are the founders of the infamous Fyre Festival. The festival was told to be held on the famous island that was once owned by Pablo Escobar. There was a beautiful promo video shot with beautiful models including Bella Hadid and Chanel Iman, and there was so many ads posted on Instagram by social media influencers, even Kendall Jenner. Therefore, those promos enough made a lot of sales on their own. During the process of planning the event, there was a lot of trials and tribulations. For starters, when the budget was written up, it was already up to $38 million dollars. However, there was no way Billy and Ja Rule could come up with the money for it all. They couldn’t even afford to pay their workers and they couldn’t even afford the bottled water to serve the guest. Billy literally had to ask one of his employees to perform a sexual act for the water. But wait there’s more.
When the guest arrived, there was no turning back. The tents that were provided were all wet from rain that happened days before and mud was everywhere. People that were promised villas had to result to tents, the nice food that was supposed to be served had resulted to cheese, a slice of bread, and a small portion of salad. Which ran out after the first night. When night fell, there was barely any light source for people to even see. People were basically stranded on the trashed island. Why? Because the staff didn’t even book and connecting flight for everyone back to Miami so they can return home. Even though the first night was terrible, that was only 1/3 of the people that were coming. The next day, everyone’s flight to the island was cancelled and they were stuck in the airport for hours before being told to go back home.
Teens and young adults love these music festivals. It is a perfect opportunity for them to get away, have an early vacation, and jam out to their favorite artists. However, these excited teens were faced with starvation, basically homelessness, and even had some of their things stolen because of a man that had too much “dip on his chip”.
If you would like to look more into the Fyre Festival Scandal, you can watch Fyre on Netflix or Fyre Fraud on Hulu.