Documenting the music festival disaster
Riverbend was my first music festival. I was around 18 or 19 and I had traveled around to the various metro areas of Tennessee and seen quite a few of my favorite artists in individual concerts, or occasionally touring with someone else I liked.
Riverbend cost about the same as those concerts, but had more performers, albeit performers who were a little beyond their prime.
But there was a girl I liked in Chattanooga; I had a few friends in the area and plenty of spare time. And that’s how I ended up watching Collective Soul from what seemed like really far away, on a wet curb in the rain. It wasn’t the best, but the company wasn’t terrible.
I’ve been to a few other festivals since, others with better artists, but it’s always been a similar experience. Too many people, too far away, weather dependent. Bigger festivals sound even worse. To me, the idea of camping outside for days with smelly, intoxicated people surrounded by port-a-potties sounds about as enjoyable as a root canal, no matter how great the music is.
Fyre Festival, as it was billed, sounds like a festival for people like me. At least, people like me with a whole lot more money. It was meant to be a luxury music festival in the Bahamas, filled with white sands, supermodels, copious amounts of alcohol, and the hottest music on the planet. It didn’t end up that way, though. Fyre Festival was a scam in every sense of the word.
There are two competing documentaries about the Fyre Festival—Fyre Fraud, which debuted on Hulu, and Fyre, which debuted on Netflix. Both came out around the same time and both are rated about the same.
I’ve only watched Fyre, for no reason other than I had Netflix opened first. I’m sure Fyre Fraud has its own interesting take, but to be honest, the subject isn’t two-documentary interesting. One is more than enough, unless you’re a person who really enjoys watching rich young people get taken for thousands of dollars. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The story begins with an up-and-coming entrepreneur and promotor named Billy McFarland. McFarland created the festival in order to advertise for a new app, called Fyre, of course. The app was meant to provide users with a direct link to artists, allowing anyone to book anyone for any event, cutting out the middle men. If you have $100,000 and want Lil’ Wayne for your birthday party, the Fyre app could help with that.
The app was given legitimacy (if such a thing is possible) by rapper and investor Ja Rule. At some point in the app’s development, Fyre Festival was conceived. As the documentary unfolds, the audience sees an unbelievable amount of hubris and wishful thinking combined with a complete lack of detail-oriented planning.
Even before the fraud becomes glaringly obvious, it’s clear that the people in charge of the festival had no understanding of event planning. In the end, the festival collapsed completely, leaving attendees stranded on a desert island, workers without pay, and criminal charges pending.
How does something like the Fyre Festival even happen? Simply put, scammers are gonna scam. There’s no limit to the number of red flags some people will ignore when they’re excited about exclusivity. The Fyre Festival was wildly successful at marketing—they paid a variety of Instagram models and “influencers” exorbitant amounts of money to promote the festival on their accounts. They made giant promises about the accommodations, using stock photos and pretty pictures, and certain people ate it up.
As it turns out, the amount of money a person has doesn’t have any bearing on their ability to be duped. At the very least, you’d hope that lessons were learned. The documentary suggests otherwise, though. The aftermath of the festival, particularly the fate of Billy McFarland, is probably the most shocking part of the entire documentary.
Some people just can’t help themselves. This week, Ja Rule announced that Fyre Festival 2.0 is happening. Who is going to buy those tickets? The same people that bought tickets to the first festival, probably. We’ll meet back here next for the documentary sequel.