Fyre Fest
Billy McFarland says he’s ready to sell Fyre Festival 2 to the highest bidder.
Earlier today, the convicted fraudster took to social media to post a mea culpa about his failures as a festival promoter while once more rebranding Fyre Festival as “one of the most powerful attention engines in the world,” in his words.
The double-speak is part of McFarland’s attempt to liquidate Fyre Festival’s only assets — its trademarks and IP — to the highest bidder now that Fyre Fest 2 has been indefinitely postponed. Early this month, government officials with the city of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, poured cold water on the long-shot festival — designed in part to rehabilitate McFarland’s image following the disastrous, aborted 2017 edition of the event in the Bahamas that resulted in global mockery, competing documentary films and a federal prison sentence for McFarland — by writing on social media that “there is no record or planning of any such event in the municipality.”
McFarland has said the idea for a follow-up festival came to him while serving time in solitary confinement, and he began pitching Fyre Festival 2 after his release from prison in 2022, hyping his plans on social media with splashy videos and spurious claims. As McFarland would finally admit on Wednesday (April 23), he has failed to regain the trust of fans, major talent agencies and the municipal government of Playa Del Carmen.
In his letter to fans, McFarland explained, “I can’t risk a repeat of what happened in Playa Del Carmen, where support quickly turned into public distancing once media attention intensified,” noting, “For FYRE Festival 2 to succeed, it’s clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently, bringing the vision to life on this incredible island.”
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On Fyre’s website, where McFarland once hawked $1.1 million ticket packages for Fyre Fest 2, he now features a short pitch deck for the sale of Fyre’s IP, sharing details about Fyre’s web traffic and Google analytics while noting he’s ready to hand off the tarnished brand.
Giving control “to a new group is the most responsible way to follow through on what we set out to do: build a global entertainment brand, host a safe and legendary event, and continue to pay restitution to those who are owed from the first festival,” McFarland wrote, noting that he owes his victims from the first Fyre Festival more than $26 million.
On Monday (April 21), news broke of Fyre’s first licensing deal: an agreement for Fyre Music Streaming Ventures, LLC, a fan-curated on-demand music video streaming service and ad-supported TV channel. As its founder, Shawn Rech, told Billboard: “I just want people to remember the [Fyre] name.”
To view the sales material for Fyre, visit Fyre.mx.
As a festival platform, the Fyre brand doesn’t have the best reputation, to say the least. Originally billed as the ultimate FOMO event for influencers and scenesters, the high-profile collapse of the 2017 Fyre Festival in the Bahamas has become the ultimate symbol for hubris in the live music business and an unofficial synonym for any event plagued by disorganization, malaise or misery.
Now that Fyre founder Billy McFarland has tried, and once again failed, to revive the Fyre Fest name, most music fans have written off the brand as dead — but one Cleveland music and media executive has a new vision for the creatively spelled four-letter word.
Enter Fyre Music Streaming Ventures, LLC, a fan-curated on-demand music video streaming service that founder Shawn Rech hopes will become “home for the most passionate music fans and undiscovered talent around the world,” according to a release.
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“I just want people to remember the name,” Rech tells Billboard on why he chose Fyre. “It’s really that simple. It’s PT Barnum. All publicity is good publicity.”
Rech tells Billboard that shortly after the second Fyre Festival started collapsing last week, his team was on the phone with McFarland hammering out an agreement to use the Fyre name, logos and trademarks to brand the streaming venture. The agreement with Rech won’t impact McFarland’s ability to stage Fyre Festival at a future date.
Since getting out of prison in late 2022, McFarland has been hyping Fyre Festival 2 as a kind of redemption project following the disastrous 2017 event in the Bahamas that left fans stranded and resulted in a three-year sentence for the founder. Originally announced to be taking place on Isla Mujeres in Mexico, McFarland later moved the festival to Playa del Carmen before canceling it altogether after local officials in the Mexican town denied any knowledge of its existence.
Rech is a veteran entertainment executive and president/co-founder of the TruBlu Crime Network, which he launched with former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in 2022. For $4.99 a month, TruBlu subscribers get access to dozens of licensed true crime shows and documentaries like A+E After Dark, Bounty Hunters and Takedown with Chris Hansen, accessible across devices via download apps and native channels built into smart TVs.
Rech says Fyre “is like a curated YouTube with an emphasis on music.” It will operate as both a subscription service and as a FAST channel, an acronym for Free Ad-supported Streaming TV, with more linear-based programming and music content submitted and upvoted by fans. Fyre will also offer audio-only capabilities for fans looking to stream content on their phones at a lower bandwidth. Metadata identification will be verified by GraceNote.
“The relationship is between the artist and the fan through a single conduit. We intend to be that conduit,” Rech says.
Fyre will use both tastemakers and fan behavior to help drive its content strategy and potentially feature McFarland in a potential talent role in the future, although nothing has been finalized.
“He was fine to deal with; I have nothing negative to say,” Rech said when asked about working with McFarland. “He’s a big dreamer.”
You can learn more about the project and sign up for notifications at watchfyretv.com.
Fyre Fest 2, Billy McFarland‘s attempted second iteration of the failed 2017 Fyre Festival, has been postponed by organizers, according to multiple reports. ABC News reports that Fyre Fest 2 organizers messaged ticket holders on Wednesday (April 16) stating, “The event has been postponed and a new date will be announced. We have issued you […]
Fyre Fest founder Billy McFarland is pushing back after Mexican government officials poured cold water on his plans to resuscitate his flailing Fyre Fest 2.
Hours after the city council of Playa del Carmen, a seaside resort town along Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the event was not happening, McFarland issued a statement of his own calling media reports of the news “inaccurate” and “based on misinformation.”
The disagreement began Wednesday night (April 2) when an account for the Playa del Carmen City Hall posted a statement that, when translated to English, claimed no event called Fyre Fest 2 was happening in the coastal city.
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“In response to rumors about a supposed event called ‘Fyre 2,’ we inform you that no event of that name will be held in Playa del Carmen,” the statement read. “After a thorough review, there is no record or planning of any such event in the municipality.”
That led McFarland to fire back today, taking to Instagram to claim that “Fyre has been working directly with the government of Playa del Carmen and their officials since March 5, 2025, to ensure a safe and successful event.” McFarland then shared about a dozen documents on the festival’s Instagram account detailing its work with Playa del Carmen government officials to secure the proper permits for the festival, which has long been billed as a redemption project for McFarland following his disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival in the Bahamas. For that event, ticket holders were promised a luxury destination music festival only to find, on arrival at Great Exuma island, that the event they were promised was completely unrealized.
McFarland ended up serving a four-year prison sentence for misleading investors about the project. Since his release in 2022, he has promised to stage a makeup event to clean up his image and help repay the $26 million he owes his victims in restitution.
As part of Friday’s document dump, McFarland shared an email from someone with a gobiernodesolidaridad.gob.mx email address — a URL tied to the Playa del Carmen municipal government — that he called an “official invitation letter” designed to be sent to artists’ representatives to help procure talent for the festival. (The name of the email’s sender was redacted.)
“We are actively working with Fyre Festival 2 organizers to ensure a successful event from May 30 – June 2, 2025,” the email reads. “The event organizers have secured some of the best beach clubs, villas and experiential locations.” McFarland also included copies of alleged event authorization permits from Luis Armando Herrera Quiam, secretary general of Playa del Carmen, along with an alleged film permit and environmental impact assessment.
What the back and forth means for the future of Fyre Fest 2 remains to be seen. McFarland had previously announced plans to stage the event on Isla Mujeres, a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean Sea about a 30-minute ferry ride from Cancun, located in the state of Quintana Roo. But in March, tourism officials there told several media outlets that no record of the festival existed.
Tickets for Fyre Fest 2 start at $1,400 a piece for a four-day pass (airfare and hotel not included) and go as high as $25,000 for artist passes. On the high end, fans can also purchase a $1 million package for eight people that McFarland says includes access to luxury villas, a private marina with high-end yachts and a private jet to and from Cancun.
Billy McFarland’s Fyre Fest 2 is slated to take place on Isla Mujeres in Mexico from May 30 to June 2, and one artist has announced his appearance on the bill.
Former NFL star Antonio “AB” Brown claimed in an interview with TMZ Sports on Thursday (March 6) that he’s been booked for a performance on May 30.
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“Ayo, this is AB and I’ll be performing at Fyre Fest part 2 in Mexico on May 30. Be there or be square,” AB said while rocking an army helmet. “Make sure you put that sh– on.”
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Isla Mujeres is located in the state of Quintana Roo and is about a half-hour ferry ride from Cancun. Various ticket packages are available, ranging from $1,400 to $25,000, and there’s even a $1 million package for eight people that has access to luxury villas, a private marina and a private jet.
AB is the first confirmed artist for Fyre Fest 2. The festival has yet to release a lineup of talent. Festival organizers reportedly told TMZ that they have booked several artists.
Billboard reached out to two of the biggest booking agencies for music festivals in February, and neither heard from reps for Fyre Fest 2.
Antonio Brown played his last game in the NFL on Jan. 2, 2022, when he famously left the field with no shirt on mid-game and never took another snap on the gridiron.
AB turned to rapping and a friendship with Ye (formerly Kanye West), who executive-produced his Paradigm project, which arrived in 2022 with standouts like “Put That Sh– On” and features from DaBaby, Young Thug, French Montana, Fivio Foreign and Keyshia Cole. He performed at Rolling Loud California in 2023.
The original Fyre Fest took place in April 2017 and is remembered as one of the most disastrous festivals in music history.
Convicted fraudster Billy McFarland is getting a second chance and he’s promising this edition won’t be a repeat of the first. McFarland was sentenced to six years in 2018 after admitting to defrauding investors of millions of dollars. He was released to a halfway house in 2022.
Billy McFarland‘s against-all-odds comeback festival has an official ticketing partner, location and new date, but skeptics still have plenty of reasons to doubt the convicted fraudster’s claims that Fyre Fest 2 won’t be a repeat of his 2017 disaster in the Bahamas.
On Monday (Feb. 24), Austin-based secondary ticketing site soldout.com announced an exclusive ticketing partnership with Fyre Festival 2, which the release announced was to be held on Isla Mujeres in Mexico from May 30 to June 2, 2025 (roughly a month later than the previously-announced dates of April 25-28). Isla Mujeres is a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean Sea about a 30-minute ferry ride from Cancun, located in the state of Quintana Roo.
Tickets for Fyre Fest 2 start at $1,400 a piece for a four-day pass (airfare and hotel not included) and go as high as $25,000 for artist passes that include backstage access and overnight stays at one of two high-end hotels on the island. There’s even a $1 million package for eight people that McFarland says includes access to luxury villas, a private marina with high-end yachts and a private jet to and from Cancun.
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Fyre is handling the primary sale of tickets through its own internal system and is utilizing soldout.com for secondary sales. On its website, soldout.com guarantees fans a 100% refund of their money if an event is canceled and not rescheduled. Notably, fans seeking a refund for the 2017 festival received pennies on the dollar due to the festival’s bankruptcy.
Andrew Hentrich, president of Soldout.com, affirms that his company does guarantee refunds if the fest is canceled, noting that “all proceeds from Fyre Festival ticket sales on SoldOut.com are held securely and will not be settled with Fyre until after the event has successfully taken place. Additionally, SoldOut.com is fully insured and financially equipped to issue refunds if necessary, ensuring buyers are protected in the event of cancellation or significant changes to the festival date. This policy applies to all events listed on SoldOut.com, not just Fyre Festival.”
McFarland has been teasing Fyre Festival 2 as a redemption project and personal rebrand since being released from prison and into a halfway house in May 2022. McFarland served four years of his six-year sentence after admitting to defrauding investors in the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival, which was promised as a luxury destination music event via extravagant promotion from A-list celebrity influencers. But when ticketholders showed up on Great Exuma island in The Bahamas, they found the event they were promised was totally unrealized. McFarland also pleaded guilty to charges in a later ticket-selling scam.
McFarland promises Fyre Festival 2 will be different, and nailing down a location and locking in a date for the festival are major milestones. A press release also announced that Mexican concert production company LostNights would handle festival logistics.
“FYRE Festival 2 is about the adventure into the unknown, curating elite, once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” McFarland said in a statement. “Soldout.com’s background in the music festival world will ensure that our guests have a seamless ticket-buying process from start to finish. Soldout.com is a great addition to the team which also includes Lostnights, our talented and accomplished festival producer and operator.”
The next step will be securing talent for the festival. Billboard reached out to two of the largest booking agencies for music festivals and both said no one has contacted them from Fyre Festival or LostNights to book musical talent.
Billy McFarland, the convicted fraudster behind the disastrous Fyre Festival of 2017, has announced new dates for the long-awaited follow-up to the often-mocked Bahamian influencer event that landed him in prison for four years, owing victims more than $26 million in restitution.
Earlier this week, McFarland took to the Today Show to “announce” the new dates for Fyre Fest II, which he now says will take place April 25-28 on “a private island off the Caribbean coast of Mexico.” By most counts, however, this is the third or fourth version of a sequel to the event McFarland has broadcast to his followers. McFarland has been hyping up a follow-up to the disastrous 2017 Bahamas festival since he went to prison in late 2018, changing the date for his redemption-style event several times while carefully removing or updating past references to Fyre II each time he updates his social media sites.
According to court documents, McFarland has been writing up a plan for the event — first called PYRT festival — since he was incarcerated at Elkton Federal Correctional Institute in Ohio on charges of fraud and lying to the FBI. McFarland immediately begin hawking the event on TikTok when he got out of prison in mid-2022 with a scavenger hunt. McFarland had fans looking through empty bottles by late November of that year for free tickets to an event he’d eventually rebrand as Fyre Fest II in August of 2023, where he claimed to have placed 100 tickets on sale for $499 a pop and immediately sold out of them, which would have generated nearly $50,000 in revenue.
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The date for that event was scheduled for late 2024 and at one point McFarland bragged there were more people signing up for his event than buying tickets for Coachella. Besides the first 100 tickets allegedly sold to Fyre II, fans have only been able to “sign up” for tickets to the sequel event, clicking through a form-style website where they are encouraged to apply for the opportunity to buy tickets to Fyre Festival II, with prices ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million. At this point, fans can’t buy tickets for the event — they can only apply to attend.
McFarland detailed the venture to both the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, saying that he hopes to gather about 3,000 people for the event and also promises “an incredible production company who’s handling everything from soup to nuts” for the fest.
“We have the chance to embrace this storm and really steer our ship into all the chaos that has happened, and if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry,” McFarland told NBC.
McFarland has not avoided legal trouble since leaving prison. Last year he was served a civil summons, which claimed he ripped off an investor who gave him $740,000 for his new venture. An attorney for 54-year-old Jonathan Taylor of New York — who met McFarland while both were serving prison sentences at Elkton — said Taylor struck an agreement with McFarland and his business partner, Michael Falb (also named as a defendant), in which they allegedly offered him one-third equity in the venture, PYRT Technologies, in exchange for a $740,000 investment. Taylor claims McFarland and Falb then reneged on the deal by refusing to grant him the equity they promised or to return the money despite his demands that they do so. A judge later ruled that Taylor needed to refile the lawsuit to push the case forward.
McFarland has managed to stay busy with other ventures since leaving prison. In May, McFarland won a heavily hyped martial arts fight against a social media influencer, defeating the heavily favored crypto YouTuber Justin “Jchains” Custardo via TKO during the main event of Karate Combat’s Influencer Fight Club series at the Consensus conference in Austin, Texas.
McFarland has also launched the PYRT marketing agency and been heavily involved in the promotion of the song “ONBOA47RD,” a pro-Donald Trump rap song from Fivio Foreign and Kodak Black.
Fyre Fest fraudster Billy McFarland shocked the crypto and combat sports world Thursday night, defeating the heavily favored crypto YouTuber Justin “Jchains” Custardo via TKO during the main event of Karate Combat’s Influencer Fight Club series at the Consensus conference in Austin, Texas.
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Custardo, the co-founder of the Web3 Breakfast Club channel, had trained for months for the bout, promising revenge for the investors who lost $26 million on McFarland’s fraudulent Fyre Fest. But Custardo quickly ran out of gas in the second round of the wild MMA-style fight and had no defense against a barrage of right crosses thrown by McFarland. With less than 20 seconds left, McFarland finished off Custardo with a knee strike and several punches, sending the gassed out content creator to the mat for the final time.
The two-round fight was the final bout at Karate Combat 46, a four-hour event combining full contact martial arts with crypto trading and immersive CGI environments powered by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine program. Karate Combat odds makers had favored Custardo to win the bout with 58/42 odds, but fight announcer and three-time UFC champion George St. Pierre did note prior to the bout that McFarland potentially had one major advantage in his corner.
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“Do you think he learned anything crazy in prison,” announcer and podcaster Mike Maljack asked St. Pierre, referencing McFarland’s four-year stint in prison.
“I think he learned a lot more when he got out because he trained with Phil Nurse, who was my coach for my career,” said St. Pierre, who is widely regarded as the greatest welterweight MMA fighter in UFC history. Nurse is a UK-born former Muay Thai kickboxer and undefeated European Light Welterweight Champion who now owns and trains out of The Wat, a gym in Manhattan.
“There is no better teacher than Phil Nurse I believe,” St. Pierre said.
McFarland thanked Nurse in a post-fight interview and promised to use a portion of his winnings, including all of his $12,000 knockout bonus, to repay his Fyre Fest investors. As for Custardo, the YouTuber took to social media shortly after the fight to devour a post-bout slice of pizza and nurse his wounds.
“I got beat up, but it’s alright,” Custardo told his followers.
Pizza never tasted so good. Thanks to everyone that came to support. Apologies we didn’t bring home the W but I’m hanging my head up high. Fought my ass off. Shoutout to @pyrtbilly for being one tough motherfucker. I owe you a beer dude. Looking forward to it. pic.twitter.com/zA2kUQxCUQ— JChains (@CryptoJChains) May 31, 2024
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