fyre festival
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Theo Wargo / Billy McFarland
Billy McFarland, for whatever reason, thought he could revive Fyre Fest, but now claims he is canceling the struggling music festival before attempting to make it happen.
Shortly after announcing that he is transforming Fyre Fest into a music streaming video-on-demand service, McFarland is now saying that he is officially canceling the festival.
The news comes after word of the Fyre Fest 2 postponement, with no new date of the festival’s return in sight. McFarland also announced that he is planning to sell the brand that is now synonymous with Ja Rule and struggle after poor festivalgoers found themselves stranded on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma.
McFarland announced the news via a statement he shared on Instagram:
“A new chapter begins. After two years of rebuilding FYRE with honesty, creativity, and relentless effort, it’s time to pass the torch. We’re officially putting the FYRE brand up for sale. To the right buyer: the platform is yours. Execute the vision. Make history.” On why he is selling the brand, McFarland shares that he the festival is becoming “bigger than any one person and bigger than what I’m able to lead on my own.” He added in the statement, “When my team and I launched FYRE Festival 2, it was about two things: finishing what I started and making things right. Over the past two years, we’ve poured everything into bringing Fyre back with honesty, transparency, relentless effort, and creativity. We’ve taken the long road to rebuilding trust. We rebuilt momentum. And we proved one thing without a doubt: FYRE is one of the most powerful attention engines in the world.”
Welp.
Billy McFarland Came Up With The Idea of Fyre Fest 2 While In Prison
McFarland claimed he got the idea to try again with Fyre Fest during a stint in solitary confinement while he was in prison serving out his term after being found guilty of financial crimes related to the festival.
It’s clear he didn’t learn his lesson if he was planning to do it all over again. Our question is who would be dumb enough to bankroll this idea, or even consider purchasing tickets after the last fiasco.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Theo Wargo / Billy McFarland
Billy McFarland, for whatever reason, thought he could revive Fyre Fest, but now claims he is canceling the struggling music festival before attempting to make it happen.
Shortly after announcing that he is transforming Fyre Fest into a music streaming video-on-demand service, McFarland is now saying that he is officially canceling the festival.
The news comes after word of the Fyre Fest 2 postponement, with no new date of the festival’s return in sight. McFarland also announced that he is planning to sell the brand that is now synonymous with Ja Rule and struggle after poor festivalgoers found themselves stranded on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma.
McFarland announced the news via a statement he shared on Instagram:
“A new chapter begins. After two years of rebuilding FYRE with honesty, creativity, and relentless effort, it’s time to pass the torch. We’re officially putting the FYRE brand up for sale. To the right buyer: the platform is yours. Execute the vision. Make history.” On why he is selling the brand, McFarland shares that he the festival is becoming “bigger than any one person and bigger than what I’m able to lead on my own.” He added in the statement, “When my team and I launched FYRE Festival 2, it was about two things: finishing what I started and making things right. Over the past two years, we’ve poured everything into bringing Fyre back with honesty, transparency, relentless effort, and creativity. We’ve taken the long road to rebuilding trust. We rebuilt momentum. And we proved one thing without a doubt: FYRE is one of the most powerful attention engines in the world.”
Welp.
Billy McFarland Came Up With The Idea of Fyre Fest 2 While In Prison
McFarland claimed he got the idea to try again with Fyre Fest during a stint in solitary confinement while he was in prison serving out his term after being found guilty of financial crimes related to the festival.
It’s clear he didn’t learn his lesson if he was planning to do it all over again. Our question is who would be dumb enough to bankroll this idea, or even consider purchasing tickets after the last fiasco.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Theo Wargo / Billy McFarland
Billy McFarland, for whatever reason, thought he could revive Fyre Fest, but now claims he is canceling the struggling music festival before attempting to make it happen.
Shortly after announcing that he is transforming Fyre Fest into a music streaming video-on-demand service, McFarland is now saying that he is officially canceling the festival.
The news comes after word of the Fyre Fest 2 postponement, with no new date of the festival’s return in sight. McFarland also announced that he is planning to sell the brand that is now synonymous with Ja Rule and struggle after poor festivalgoers found themselves stranded on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma.
McFarland announced the news via a statement he shared on Instagram:
“A new chapter begins. After two years of rebuilding FYRE with honesty, creativity, and relentless effort, it’s time to pass the torch. We’re officially putting the FYRE brand up for sale. To the right buyer: the platform is yours. Execute the vision. Make history.” On why he is selling the brand, McFarland shares that he the festival is becoming “bigger than any one person and bigger than what I’m able to lead on my own.” He added in the statement, “When my team and I launched FYRE Festival 2, it was about two things: finishing what I started and making things right. Over the past two years, we’ve poured everything into bringing Fyre back with honesty, transparency, relentless effort, and creativity. We’ve taken the long road to rebuilding trust. We rebuilt momentum. And we proved one thing without a doubt: FYRE is one of the most powerful attention engines in the world.”
Welp.
Billy McFarland Came Up With The Idea of Fyre Fest 2 While In Prison
McFarland claimed he got the idea to try again with Fyre Fest during a stint in solitary confinement while he was in prison serving out his term after being found guilty of financial crimes related to the festival.
It’s clear he didn’t learn his lesson if he was planning to do it all over again. Our question is who would be dumb enough to bankroll this idea, or even consider purchasing tickets after the last fiasco.
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.
Trending on Billboard
“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.
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Source: Theo Wargo / Getty
Sorry Hunger Games participants but it seems like the highly anticipated redo of the now infamous Fyre Festival will no longer be taking place this coming May.
Months after Billy McFarland announced that he was indeed going to hold a sequel to the abomination of a festival from 2017 that left whatever reputation Ja Rule had remaining in shambles, ABC News is reporting that McFarland is no longer going through with the festivities and has actually refunded ticket buyers their money without any word if Fyre Festival 2 will be happening at all.
While we’re sure that ticket holders are disappointed that they won’t be living it up in Mexico (at least it isn’t an island this time), we can’t help but feel some of them must have let out a sigh of relief as there was always that possibility that Fyre Festival 2025 could’ve gone just as left as it did in 2017 except with tacos this time.
ABC News reports:
A message sent to a ticket holder said, “The event has been postponed and a new date will be announced. We have issued you a refund. Once the new date is announced, at that time, you can repurchase if it works for your schedule.”
At the time, McFarland said a statement, “I’m sure many people think I’m crazy for doing this again. But I feel I’d be crazy not to do it again.”
“After years of reflection and now thoughtful planning, the new team and I have amazing plans for FYRE 2,” he added.
Like the initial Fyre Festival event, McFarland’s Fyre Fest 2 promised “an electrifying celebration of music, arts, cuisine, comedy, fashion, gaming, sports, and treasure hunting — all set in the stunning location of Isla Mujeres, Mexico,” according to the event’s website.
Honestly, it was probably for the best. McFarland just spent four years in prison for his first Fyre Festival f*ckery, so if he decided to pull the plug on the sequel it was probably because he felt it could land him back in the slammer. Just sayin’.
It definitely didn’t help that McFarland apparently didn’t have permission to even host the event on the Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) in Mexico.
Bernardo Cueto, tourism secretary of the State of Quintana Roo, where Isla Mujeres is located, told ABC News over a phone call that his agency would be the one giving permission for that kind of festival, but Fyre Fest 2 was not something he was informed about, nor was an event by that name happening in Playa del Carmen or Isla Mujeres.
Yeah, McFarland definitely wanted to avoid another possible investigation that could lead him right back into the bing and with $1,400 a ticket. He was going to raise some more eyebrows if things went left again.
What do y’all think about Fyre Festival 2 being canceled? Did attendees avert another disaster? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Source: Theo Wargo / Getty
Billy McFarland might need to find a new location for Fyre Fest 2. Mexican officials have said the event is not happening.
As per Complex, the controversial entrepreneur is trying his best to resurrect the biggest music festival that never happened. Since being released from prison in 2022, Billy McFarland has publicized his aspirations to bring the Fyre Fest back to life. On March 25, the brand announced that the Fyre Fest 2 would be hosted in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, from May 30 to June 2. While the news was met with much skepticism online, Billy continued his promotional efforts with daily posts expressing his excitement.
On April 3, Mexican officials posted an announcement to X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that the event will not be hosted there. “The municipal government of Playa del Carmen informs that no event of that name will be held in our city,” a statement read, shared by Playa del Carmen’s city hall on social media this week. “After a responsible review of the situation, it is confirmed that there are no records, plans, or conditions that indicate the holding of such an event in the municipality.”
As expected, Billy McFarland has commented on the matter and tried to dispel what Mexican authorities shared on social media. “FYRE has been working directly with the government of Playa del Carmen (PDC) and their officials since March 5, 2025 to ensure a safe and successful event. All media reports suggesting our team has not been working with the government of PDC are simply inaccurate and based on misinformation.”
According to TMZ, Fyre Fest event producer Nick Botero says that the Mexican government is “lying completely” and added “we’re not doing any event there and we plan on making it very public and showing all of the evidence.”
The government of Playa Del Carmen has yet to respond.
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Source: Theo Wargo / Getty
The controversial founder of Fyre Festival announced that the second edition of the concert event will take place on a Mexican island, causing many online to express disbelief.
On Monday (February 24), Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland announced that the second edition of the ill-fated music fest will take place this year. In a press release that was shared on social media, McFarland stated that it would be a “three-day escape to the Mexican Caribbean where you’ll explore by day alongside your favorite talent and come together at night to celebrate with music,” with patrons being hosted in “world-class accommodations” with the ability to take part in “adventures led by international and local talent, taking guests on boundary-pushing excursions by day and uniting for intimate beach-side performances at night.”
Further details revealed that the festival will be held at Isla Mujeres, a luxury tourist destination just off the coast of Mexico from May 30 to June 2. Specifically, the festival will be staged at “Playa Fyre”, which is just west of Isla Mujeres according to coordinates on the event’s website. The local government of Isla Mujeres stated that it has not received any permits from organizers when contacted by The New York Times. 2,000 tickets are now available, with prices ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million. The latter price is for an all-inclusive “Prometheus” package promising round-trip airfare from Miami to Cancun as one of the perks.
There are no performers scheduled so far for Fyre Festival 2, and in an interview with NBC’s Today, McFarland said “I’m not in charge of booking the talent,” adding that the musical acts would be from different genres including Hip-Hop, rock and electronic pop. “I’m sure many people think I’m crazy for doing this again. But I feel I’d be crazy not to do it again,” McFarland said in a statement, adding: “After years of reflection and now thoughtful planning, the new team and I have amazing plans for FYRE 2. The adventure seekers who trust the vision and take the leap will help make history. Thank you to my partners for the second chance.”
The news of the festival potentially taking place caught the attention of numerous skeptics online, who had jokes for those considering going to the festival after the first iteration failed spectacularly leading McFarland to spend six years in prison beginning in 2018. He was released in 2022. “We have Trump round 2 so why not Fyre Festival round 2,” wrote Blue Sky user Daniel Braten.
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.
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The founder of the ill-fated Fyre Fest is out of jail and ready to throw a new version of the event with an expected launch date.
For those who remember the disaster that was Fyre Fest, be prepared —a new version is on the way. According to reports, Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland is gearing up for Fyre Festival II with the announcement that it will take place on April 25-28, 2025. “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,” he said in an interview about the proposed event.
For the curious, tickets to Fyre Fest II would cost $1,400 to start for a pass to the three-day event. Ticket prices range up to $1.1 million for VIP packages which include a chance to hang out with McFarland exclusively in addition to indulging in other activities such as spending time on luxury yachts, scuba diving, and island hopping. The fest would take place on a privately owned island off of the coast of Mexico. McFarland didn’t disclose the name of the island or the production company that would be involved with planning, adding that more information would be released in the next few months.
The first Fyre Fest took place in 2017 and was advertised as a luxury music festival taking place in the Bahamas. Veteran rapper Ja Rule was involved in the organization of the event, but it quickly turned into one of the most disastrous concert failures ever with people being stranded without much shelter or food. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for fraud related to the event, and he was released from prison in 2022. He still owes $26 million in restitution to concertgoers.
McFarland has also been busy consulting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, steering rap celebs such as Waka Flocka Flame to endorse his run for office. He does feel there will be a turnout for Fyre Fest II. “I think there’s a large number of people who want to go to Fyre II because they’re unsure of the outcome, and they would like to have a front-row seat no matter what happens,” he said. “Thankfully, we have good partners who will make sure they’re safe and obviously make sure things work out.”