Eric

Weekends

The Epic Failure of Fyre Festival

April 30, 2017 | Eric

In what might one of the biggest concert fails in recent years, an exclusive V.I.P. music festival that was supposed to happen this weekend crumbled around the few guests who shelled out big dough to be there.

The Fyre Festival was billed as a wealthy millennial island party, the likes of which the world had never seen.  An entire mini-city was to spring up from the Bahamas, teeming with models, celebrities, and of course, music.  Blink-182 was among the bands that was supposed to be appearing at this festival, the brain child of Ja Rule and promoter Billy McFarland.  They reportedly pulled out way before the disaster.

You may have heard by now the horror stories by now.  Instead of gourmet food, cheese sandwiches.  Instead of private sleeping villas, a game of musical chairs with the few tents that were there to house guests.  Instead of every little need taken care of, guests were thrown cardboard boxes and told to scavenge for anything useful.  Instead of a flawless cashless payment system, many people were stranded in the encampment without ways to fly out.

Here’s what it was supposed to be (from NYMag.com):

Here’s the final product:

This article best sums up the experience — the story of one of the planners hired to make it happen in just two months.  It was a disaster waiting to happen, yet the powers that be pushed forward.

Over the weekend, the promoters got everyone out, apologized, and said they would try again.

I’ve helped plan festival concerts of a large scale.  I’m talking a full-day schedule with a dozen and a half bands.  We took six months to plan them.  And that was with all the infrastructure already in place.  I’m all for having a dream, but when you fail listen to the experts around you, I don’t have an ounce of sympathy.  — [eric]

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