It’s not always nice to laugh at the misfortune of others, and everyone generally has a festival horror story to tell, but it’s difficult not to chuckle at the absolute shambles that was the Fyre Festival.
To fully understand just what an epic fail this was on the part of organisers, you need to know what those in attendance were promised.
Running over this past weekend, and planned to run again this coming weekend, it appeared that it would be a jol to remember.
Some basics from the Telegraph:
It promised to be a boutique festival like no other: yachts, turquoise waters and adorable piglets that frolicked on the beach with supermodels by day, with bands by night. Based on a remote island formerly owned by Pablo Escobar in The Exumas in The Bahamas, guests would be flown in and wined and dined for tickets that range in price from $450 – $250,000.
Yeah kids, tickets went all the way up to $250 000.
The pitch, backed by some of social media’s premier influencers (get this – dubbed “The Fyre Squad”), has to be seen to be believed. Organisers wanted to raise $25 million worth of funding, and they didn’t hold back on the cheese when looking for it.
Before we dive in can we note that they actually quoted philosopher and poet Rami – “Seek those who light your flames”. Cape Town Twitter is sure to have a field day with that.
Right, some of those Fyre Starters courtesy of Vanity Fair:
The Talent Network:
Your founders:
All looking pretty damn top notch, but then reality sets in. Back to the Telegraph for the beginning of the unravelling:
When headliners Blink 182 pulled out at the last minute, claiming that they “were not confident that we would have what we need to give you the quality of performances we always give our fans”, people perhaps should have been wary.
Guests arrived at the airports expecting to travel like celebrities in chartered 737 planes, but found themselves stranded with only lengthy delays. When they arrived, their luggage was dumped from shipping tankers on the beaches in darkness. The luxury accommodation transpired to be disaster relief tents, while others found themselves with no accommodation at all. The gourmet food turned out to be a deconstructed cheese sandwich.
Finally, as sewage facilities broke around the site, the festival was cancelled on its first day, leaving many guests unable to get home. And as for those crystal clear waters? Apparently infested with sharks.
Bit of a buzzkill, really.
Over at NY Mag one of the people who initially worked as a talent producer, but quit when it all went south rather rapidly, outlined what a shambles it was from the very start:
I was planning to spend the next two months working on the festival, but a mere four days after I arrived I was back on a plane to New York because the whole thing, as everyone now knows, was a complete disaster. I was briefly involved in the planning of the event and got a front-row seat to chaos…
After we landed, we drove to the festival site to assess our goods. When we arrived, my initial reaction was “huh.” This was not a model-filled private cay that was owned by Pablo Escobar. This was a development lot covered in gravel with a few tractors scattered around. There was not enough space to build all the tents and green rooms they would need…
At this point it was pretty clear that this was a mess and I shared my concerns with the man I reported to. But he assured me that the Fyre execs were legit, and said some socialite was underwriting the whole thing. The budget was okayed and we were told to carry on with our planning. That night Ja Rule gave a toast. “To living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and fucking like porn stars.” If Ja Rule is punished for anything perhaps it should be that…
The next day, things really started to fall apart. On Friday, lots of people on the production team got fired. I did not get fired. I did get a phone call that same night that said something along the lines of, “Congratulations, the guys will allow you to continue to work on the festival! For two thirds of what you asked for. And we’re not paying the artists yet.” So with that, I quit. I told the tour managers I had been in contact with that I was going to take myself off the project. And then I flew back to New York and waited eagerly for six weeks to see how Fyre Festival would play out…
I cannot explain how or why the bros running this festival ignored every warning sign they were given along the way. The writing was on the wall. I saw it firsthand six weeks ago. They overlooked so many very basic things. And baby, they forgot to make me sign an NDA.
NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement, in case that had you stumped.
There’s really just too many horror stories from this mess to cover them all, and I’m sure many more will continue to come to light in the weeks that follow, but we leave you with this from the BBC:
The organisers of the disastrous Fyre Festival have been hit with a $100m (£78m) lawsuit by one of the attendees…
Attendee Daniel Jung, who has enlisted the services of celebrity trial lawyer Mark Geragos, is accusing the pair of “an outrageous failure to prepare”.
“The festival’s lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees – suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions – that was closer to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies than Coachella,” the court filing said.
It really was one for the ages.
[sources:telegraph&vanityfair&nymag&bbc]
