Billy McFarland was a young entrepreneur trying to make a name for himself in New York City. He had a small business called Magenesis which was essentially credit cards that were made of metal to have a cooler, slick look to them. While Magneis was only semi-successful it allowed for Billy to get some recognition in the business world.
Soon after magnesis Billy partnered up with rapper JaRule for his next big venture. Billy had an idea to create a music festival that takes place on an entire island dedicated to said festival. He named it Fyre Festival. Without actually planning any of the events Billy went to the Bahamas to record a commercial. The commercial showed images of luxury yachts, private villas, gorgeous landscapes, beautiful women, and much more. The commercial gained a lot of traction and Fyre Festival quickly became a trending subject on social media. Along with that many influencers such as Bella Hadid and even Kendall Jenner said they were going to the festival.
The general public were ancy for the Fyre Festival, the only problem was that it still did not actually exist. Billy gave himself 6 months to prepare for the event which is virtually impossible. The island they filmed the commercial at was actually not available for purchase and the only one they could get at such short notice went by the name of Great Exuma. This island did not look anything close to the one in the commercial. Great Exuma was mostly flat lands with very little to no notable landmarks. It was full of poverty and very few houses to rent. Billy was running out of money and fast, he decided to shut down the sales of regular tickets and only allowed VIP tickets which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also shoe horned in a virtual money system in which people would have to buy wristbands. This however did not raise nearly enough money to allow the event to happen.
Virtually every celebrity that promised to come was never actually paid, so when the event came around many decided to back out at the last second. The festival itself was by no surprise an absolute train wreck. The private jets people were promised were really just commercial air flights, their vilas were really just fema tents(which did not all contain mattresses). For about the first 6-8 hours there was no food or water, only three million dollars worth of liquor. This caused many people to become sick from overheating and dehydration. When they were served food it was just cheese sandwiches with some lettuce
After the event Billy was sued for 100,000,000 dollars for wire fraud, he lost money for 80 investors which added up to around 24 million dollars. Rapper JaRule quickly disassociated himself with the event as a whole, saying he was never let in on the behind the scenes of it all. Billy was sentenced to 6 years in prison which he only had to serve 3. He now lives in New York City waiting for his next big idea.
contact: akb6783@psu.edu or ashley_beres1 on twitter
