There’s nothing like going to a music festival with friends to see your favorite artists, forgo hygiene, and create memories that last a lifetime. Those who attended Fyre Festival in 2017 had the same hopes and dreams when they arrived on the island of Great Exuma. Instead of the luxury experience they were promised, though, they were met with inhumane conditions and flashbacks that may haunt them for life.
The event was put together by Billy McFarland (who partnered with the rapper Ja Rule) and was promoted by celebrities like Hailey Bieber. However, the entire trip was nothing like the dreamy promo seen on social media.
What happened at Fyre Festival I?
The custom Boeing 737 for VIP festival goers never appeared, leaving them stuck at the airport to grab their baggage from a shipping container. Before you ask, yes, many bags were stolen during the unorganized chaos. The luxury villas that the festival-goers were promised looked more like a tented hut from Survivor or National Geographic.
The luxury meals were sandwiches and salads, not the Erewhon or Urth Caffe kind, but picture a prison cafeteria doing catering, and you get the idea. The musical guests like Blink-182, who were supposed to perform, dropped out before the festival even started. Some people were left without food or water for so long that they began to literally drop like flies.
The 2019 Netflix documentary FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened further broke down the mayhem surrounding the planning and attempted execution of the festival (including the infamous meme of event producer Andy King almost providing fellatio to get water for festival attendees).
Tickets started at $500 and went up to $12,000 for those wanting the full luxury experience. Regardless of what ticket you copped, though, Fyre Festival was a trip straight out of hell. McFarland (who had no previous festival planning experience btw) was sentenced to six years in federal prison in 2018 for wire fraud. He had plenty of time to think about his actions and decided that the best course of redemption was to run it back with Fyre Festival II.
Fyre Festival II sells out pre-sale tickets
Announcements about the Fyre Festival sequel story started in August 2023. The official website dropped 100 presale tickets for $499, which shockingly sold out within a day. While no details about the lineup or accommodations were released, the site said that the event originally would take place in the Caribbean at the end of 2024. The price of tickets also rose, with tiers ranging from $799 to $7,999 each.
McFarland and updates about the festival disappeared for a while. However, on September 9, 2024, he gave NBC News an exclusive update.
What we know about Fyre Festival II
“Fyre Festival II is happening April 25, 2025…We have a private island off the coast of Mexico in the Caribbean, and we have an incredible production company who’s handling everything from soup to nuts,” McFarland said.
McFarland did not address the exact location of the festival or which musical guests are on the lineup. However, there are allegedly activities to look forward to, like “karate combat. We’re in talks with them to set up a pit to have, like, live fights at Fyre Festival II,” McFarland said which sounds like the luggage situation at Fyre Festival I.
McFarland hopes to bring 3,000 people to the experience, but ticket requests surpassed the expected capacity within hours of opening sales.
To avoid the mess that happened last time, McFarland is working with a production company to handle logistics. According to him, the festival will also use existing resources like hotels and restaurants on the island so there’s no fear of more dirty tent cities or sickly sandwiches.
Despite everything that Fyre Festival has been through, McFarland still believes that this can be a luxurious experience—and wants you to put your money where your mouth is. Going beyond the soon-available ticket tiers starting at $1,400, the most expensive ticket at the 2025 festival is $1.1 million, with an experience that allegedly goes well beyond a VIP festival pass.
“You will be on a boat, have the luxury yachts that we partner with who will be docked and parked outside the island…But once again, Fyre is not just about this, like, the luxury experience. It’s about the adventure. So you’ll be scuba diving with me. You’ll be bouncing around to other islands and other countries on small planes,” McFarland said.
Does it sound too good to be true? There are plenty of haters who are justifiably doubtful of McFarland and Fyre Festival II being a success this time.
McFarland is pushing through the hate train, though, and is moving forward with his plans, starting with a new headliner.
He is looking at Internet troll and rap titan 50 Cent to “do what Ja Rule never could” and find other musicians and performers that cover all genres. It’s going to take more than promises of rapper GOATS and once-in-a-lifetime luxury experiences for people to believe that McFarland is capable of creating the music wonderland he first promised in 2017.