3 days Ago By Aaron Williams
Getty ImageWell, here’s a shocker. No, truly, my gasteds are flabbered. You could knock me over with a feather.
ABC News reports something that anyone with a toddler’s grasp of pattern of recognition could have predicted: Fyre Festival 2 has been “postponed” by its creator Billy McFarland.At least this time, McFarland and co. didn’t wait until partygoers had already arrived to the destination venue; according to ABC, ticket holders (heh) were sent an email today, 45 days before the festival’s target dates from May 30 to June 2, announcing the postponement.
“The event has been postponed, and a new date will be announced,” it read. “We have issued you a refund. Once the new date is announced, at that time, you can repurchase if it works for your schedule.
”The refund is also a first; for those who don’t remember, or were perhaps sucker enough to fall for the same hustle twice, the first Fyre Festival went down in flames (metaphorically speaking) in 2017 after its clientele of ...
let’s say “less-than-skeptical” influencers arrived in the Bahamas to find that artists had pulled out, the promised luxury accommodations fittingly turned out to be disaster tents, and the gourmet meals were downgraded to sad cheese sandwiches on styrofoam plates.In the wake of that first disaster, McFarland was convicted of wire fraud and served time in prison, federal laws were updated to mandate more transparency from online influencers, and this guy became a celebrity for what he admitted he was willing to do in not one, but two competing documentaries about the entire flimflam. None of that stopped some people from still springing $1,400 for tickets to Fyre 2 (maybe hoping to cash in on the inevitable film rights?).
However, officials overseeing Isla Mujeres, Mexico, where the new festival was supposedly billed to take place, denied granting permission for such an event, even going as far as notifying curious researchers via Twitter: “The municipal government of Playa del Carmen, informs that no event with that name will be held in our city. After a responsible review of the situation, it was confirmed that there is no registration, planning or conditions that indicate the realization of such an event in the municipality.” Although McFarland did his best to refute these findings, his credibility is rightfully shot in that department.
As of this writing, no new date has yet been announced for Fyre 2, which hopefully means someone over there has figured out that the logistics required for such an undertaking are more of a marathon than a sprint. Not saying he can’t, or even that he shouldn’t try to make up for his mistakes in 2017, but Billy simply must put a lot more time, thought, and resources into this endeavor than he apparently has to date..
