New information has emerged in the Fyre Festival debacle which left thousands of attendees stranded on a remote island in the Bahamas. According to sources close to the event, 26 year old co-organizer Billy McFarland squandered millions of dollars and on models, jets, yachts, advertising, guys-only “working vacations” to the Bahamas, and a sundry of paid “influencers” who received over $20,000 apiece for their endorsement – including Kendal Jenner, who was reportedly paid a quarter of a million dollars for a single Instagram post receiving over 6 million views:
He spent $250,000 on a single Instagram post from Kim Kardashian’s half-sister Kendall Jenner and laid out hundreds of thousands more on lesser-name “influencers,” none of whom were paid less than $20,000, one person familiar with the payments said. –Vice
Models were reportedly offered $35,000, tickets to the festival, and a chartered flight to the event in exchange for promoting it.
Models sued
A new lawsuit (one of three to date, including a $100 million class action) claims that the models paid to promote Fyre failed to disclose that their endorsements were paid promotions, with the exception of “Gone Girl” actress Emily Ratajkowski – who was not included in litigation. These omissions, the suit claims, were Federal Trade Commission violations for not “disclosing material connections between advertisers and endorsers.”
Where is Ja Rule in all of this?
While co-founder Ja Rule initially received heat for his involvement in Fyre, and he gave an embarrassingly cliché kickoff toast, it appears that most of the blame lies with festival CEO Billy McFarland, who began planning the festival just six months ago in October of 2016. McFarland was previously known for his sketchy “Magnises,” social club – another Ja Rule collaboration which catered to millennials who could pony up $450 for a membership promiseing to grant it’s holder access to exclusive events, discounts on services, and reserved tables at nightclubs. Many have referred to the club as a scam.
Former employees speak out
During the planning phase of the event, McFarland reportedly flew down every other weekend to the Bahamas with male employees of the festival along with several models for “lavish vacations,” under the guise of work.
Billy would take all the boys down there, it would be boys only,” the employee said. “They talk about f—ing bitches and hoes in conference meetings.”
The employee said McFarland would often urinate in the office with the door open for employees to see. “It’s a boys club,” the employee said. “They laugh about it.” Another former contractor called the environment “low-key sexist and racist.”
“They were just stoked on getting vacation homes there. I didn’t feel like they were taking it seriously at all.” –Vice
While McFarland has shifted blame over the debacle onto “naiive and overwhelmed” staff, insiders told Variety magazine that event organizers were frequently warned that the Fyre Festival would be impossible to pull off in the necessary time frame.
“They did know,” one said. “It’s so gross to me that [McFarland] says they were naïve — they had been told at every point that it was impossible and they ignored it.” –Variety
And according to a former Fyre staffer, “the infrastructure just wasn’t there.”
“It had to be built. [Fyre] hired a bunch of professionals and the professionals told them it was impossible — and they couldn’t handle that, so they fired everyone. I think the statement they released is a slap in the face to the people on the island and the production company that did end up working with them. They just didn’t want to hear it.
As cash dwindled the event was lacking critical infrastructure, then there were problems with customs…
By March, McFarland’s magnum opus was in serious trouble. Having wasted millions of dollars on celebrity endorsements and other ‘marketing’ expenses, the festival needed cash to pay it’s vendors. In a desperate attempt to salvage the impending train wreck, the Fyre CEO and his team approached a second round of investors armed with a laughable yet slick pitch deck seeking $25 million in funding.
It appears that despite the late attempt to raise capital, in which one investor said he was “sold a story,” Fyre was unable to pay it’s staff – asking event employees to use their own credit cards for hotel rooms in Miami and the Bahamas. Restaurateur Stephen Starr, lined up to serve the festival, allegedly pulled out of their agreement on April 2nd – which explains the sad cheese and bread sandwiches served to attendees.
And according to late-hired production staff, an alarming lack of infrastructure was going to lead to disaster. There were no lights, no water supply, and things like toilets and showers would be impossible to arrange in time. In perhaps the nail in the supply chain coffin, right after event organizer Billy McFarland told last-minute suppliers “you don’t have to worry about customs,” Bahamian officials shut down the event site for failure to pay Customs duty taxes on items already imported for the festival.
On Sunday, the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism told ABC News, “Customs has the area on lockdown because [festival organizer] Billy [McFarland] has not paid customs duty taxes on the items that he imported” for the event. “He and his staff have left the items with a security company guarding it.” –ABC News
Despite the fact that Fyre was very obviously doomed, organizers decided to push on and ‘become legends’
And on that count, McFarland’s Fyre Festival debacle has become a legendary lesson in overambitious, materialistic, abject failure.
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he needs jail time.