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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.
Drake and producer Elkan are giving fans a glimpse of how one of the standout tracks on $ome $exy $ongs 4 U came together. Reposted from Elkan’s Instagram, Drake shared a video on his plottttwistttttt IG account of the producer crafting the beat to “Nokia” in a studio in Freetown, Sierra Leone, timestamped on Wednesday, […]
Halsey has yet another trick up their sleeves. The star revealed on Monday (Feb. 24) that she’s releasing a brand new single, titled “Safeword,” on Thursday (Feb. 27).
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To tease the single, Halsey dropped a 13-second preview into the upcoming music video, in which they’re seen rocking black-and-silver studded underwear, a leather jacket and knee-high, stiletto, studded boots. While a guitar-driven beat plays, a man is seen laying on the floor, wearing a leather submission mask. Halsey, the dominatrix, has her foot on his throat before the scene cuts to the singer’s face, exclaiming, “You’re not the boss of me!”
“Safeword” comes just a few months after Halsey dropped their highly anticipated fifth studio album, The Great Impersonator, back in October, featuring singles like “The End,” “Lucky,” “Lonely Is the Muse” and “Ego.”
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Additionally, the superstar is set to embark on her Halsey: For My Last Trick tour this spring. The 32-city Live Nation-promoted outing is slated to kick off on May 10 at the Toyota Pavilion at Concord in Concord, CA and criss-cross the country for shows in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Dallas, Nashville, Tampa, Charlotte, Toronto, Chicago and St. Louis, before winding down on July 6 at the Yaamava’ Theater in Highland, CA. Del Water Gap, The Warning, Evanescence, Alvvays, Hope Tala, Royel Otis, Sir Chloe, flowerlove, Magdalena Bay and Alemeda are all joining joining on select dates.
See the full list of tour dates here.
Lizzo is on the hunt for authenticity going into her next era, with the hitmaker dropping a new music teaser for a project titled “Love in Real Life” on Monday (Feb. 24). A cinematic clip on Lizzo’s Instagram opens with a bird’s-eye view of the Grammy winner lying on the hood of a vintage white […]
Beyoncé had yet another groundbreaking night at the 2025 Grammy Awards earlier this month, where the superstar was at last awarded her first win in the album of the year category, thanks to Cowboy Carter. Bey’s shocked reaction has since become a hilarious meme, and her mother Tina Knowles was just as surprised by the […]
Morgan Wallen opened up about hard times, and ponders the long-tail familial impact of his lower moments in a personal new song he wrote for his 4-year-old son, Indigo Wilder. On Monday (Feb. 24), the reigning CMA entertainer of the year and 19-time Billboard Music Awards winner shared a snippet of the track titled “Superman” to social media.
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In an accompanying caption, Wallen explained why it has taken a while for him to craft a song for his son.
“Been trying for a long time to write a song I loved to my son. None of them ever feel good enough because of how perfect I want something like this to be,” he shared. “And not saying this is perfect, but I am very proud of it. Here is a clip, It’s called ‘Superman.’”
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The song starts off with Wallen’s thoughts of how Indigo will grow to learn more about the life his father has led to this point — surely, the incredible career accomplishments, but the low points as well.
The song opens candidly, with lyrics that seemingly reference Wallen’s arrest last year, when the singer-songwriter was briefly taken into custody after allegedly throwing a chair from the roof of a Nashville bar. (He later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges, and was sentenced to seven days in a DUI education center, as well as two years probation.)
“One day he’s gonna see my mugshot from a night when I got a little too drunk/ Hear a song about a girl that I lost/ From the times when I just wouldn’t grow up,” Wallen sings. He continues describing his fears as a father in the vulnerable lines, “And when you ain’t a kid no more/ I hope you don’t think less of me/ I try to hide my fallen soul/ But you’re gonna see.”
The self-aware lyrics continue: “Now and then, that bottle’s my kryptonite … brings a man of steel to his knees/ Don’t always know wrong from right/ Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy/ No I don’t always save the day, but you know for you I’ll always try/ I’ll do the best I can, a Superman is still just a man sometimes.”
Wallen has been steadily sharing new music over the past few months, including “Lies, Lies, Lies,” “Smile,” “Love Somebody” and the title track to his upcoming new album, I’m the Problem. He’s set to launch his 2025 I’m the Problem Tour in June.
Hear Wallen’s snippet of “Superman” below:
While Spotify’s Billions Club contains an exclusive group of artists who’ve had songs reach one billion streams, there’s an even more elite crop of African artists who are members. “Essence” collaborators Wizkid and Tems have both reached this milestone, but not for their Billboard Hot 100 top 10 smash, and they both did it alongside […]
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” felt inescapable in 2024, but none of Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet domination made it onto NBA star Jaylen Brown’s latest playlist. The Boston Celtics wing participated in a pop culture quiz game during a timeout in the team’s face-off against the New York Knicks on Sunday (Feb. 23), and Brown struggled to […]
The Do Lab has announced the lineups for its stage at Coachella 2025.
The electronic heavy bills, which are different for each weekend of the festival, feature artists including Tokimonsta, Anderson .Paak performing as DJ Pee .Wee, a DJ set from Confidence Man, a DJ set by Tycho, Nimino, Kaleena Zanders, Villager, Ladies of Leisure, Rudimental b2b Skepsis, Snakehips b2b What So Not, J. Phlip, Aqutie and many more.
The Do Lab has been hosting a stage at Coachella since 2005, with the area having been home to performances by big name artists including Billie Eilish, DJ Snake, Rüfüs Du Sol and many others. The Do Lab also produces its flagship festival Lightning In a Bottle, which is happing again this May near Bakersfield, Calif., with a lineup that includes John Summit, Jamie xx, Khruangbin, Four Tet, Subtronics and many more.
The Do Lab’s Coachella 2005 lineups increase the dance/electronic factor on the already dance/electronic heavy bill. Announced in November, the main lineup includes Above & Beyond, The Prodigy, Sara Landry, Keinemusic, Alok, Darkside, Zedd, Kraftwerk and many others.
Coachella has three stages dedicated exclusively to dance music: the massive Sahara Tent, the club-space Yuma and Quasar, a stage that debuted in 2024 and is dedicated to extended sets. Dance music also happens across nearly all of the festivals other stages.
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Coachella returns to Indio, Calif., over two weekends, on April 13-15 and 20-22; 2025 headliners are Green Day, Lady Gaga and Post Malone, with a special set from Travis Scott.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” repeats at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 chart. A week earlier, the song rebounded to the top, from No. 15, fueled by his performance of it during the Super Bowl LIX halftime show on Feb. 9.
Meanwhile, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” adds a 10th week atop the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart.
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The Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts, which began in September 2020, rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territories excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of audio and video music services, as well as download sales, the latter of which reflect purchases from full-service digital music retailers from around the world, with sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites excluded from the charts’ calculations.
“Not Like Us” drew 111.7 million streams (down 1%) and sold 21,000 (down 46%) worldwide Feb. 14-20. The Drake diss track — which on Feb. 2 won the Grammy Awards for record and song of the year, among its five victories – logs a fourth week atop the Global 200.
Lamar also ranks in the Global 200’s top 10 with “Luther,” with SZA (up 4-3 for a new high); 2018’s “All the Stars,” also with SZA (10-6 for a new best); and “TV Off,” featuring Lefty Gunplay (8-7, after hitting No. 5). All four songs were part of his Super Bowl halftime performance.
“Die With a Smile” holds at No. 2 after nine weeks at No. 1 on the Global 200 starting last September; ROSÉ and Mars’ “APT.” slips 3-4 following 12 weeks on top beginning in October; and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” lifts 6-5 after three weeks at No. 1 last August.
“Die With a Smile” claims a 10th week atop Global Excl. U.S., with 103.3 million streams (down 4%) and 4,000 sold (down 17%) outside the U.S. Feb. 14-20. The song is the fifth to run up double-digit weeks at No. 1 since the chart began.
“APT.” holds at No. 2 after a record 15 weeks at No. 1 on Global Excl. U.S. beginning in November.
Lamar charts three songs in the Global Excl. U.S. top 10: “Not Like Us” is steady at its No. 3 best; “Luther” bounds 7-4, surpassing its prior No. 6 peak; and “All the Stars” shoots 17-8, becoming Lamar’s fifth top 10 and SZA’s fourth.
Plus, “Birds of a Feather” remains at No. 5, after three weeks on top last August.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated March 1, 2025) will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, Feb. 25. For both charts, the top 100 titles are available to all readers on Billboard.com, while the complete 200-title rankings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s subscription-based service. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
