It’s difficult for me to feel sorry for anyone who ponied up six figures to attend the Fyre Festival, which was billed the most elite, exclusive, amazing music festival to ever festival. If the festival had gone absolutely perfectly, it still wouldn’t have been worth that kind of money, let’s be honest. So, what happened? Here’s what I can figure out: Ja Rule and promoter Billy McFarland decided to put together a musical festival in the Bahamas. But unlike lesser festivals – Coachella? – they decided that this would be the most elite music fest ever, with no peasant riff-raff. So they hired models like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, Hailey Baldwin, Chanel Iman to promote the festival and encourage their fans (??) to spend that kind of money on a musical-festival experience.
The festival experience was supposed to include fancy meals, lux accommodations and amazing music, all in the presence of those Instamodels and A-list celebrities. Except none of that panned out. The lux accommodations were little more than gross, muddy FEMA tents, with no beds or Port-o-potties or sheets. The food was a cheese sandwich. No A-listers showed up. Worst of all, many of the attendees felt like they were being held hostage – once they arrived at the venue, they couldn’t leave. You can read an expansive account of what went on here at E! News.
NY Mag also ran a hilarious first-hand account from one of the people hired to help “organize” the event, and she’s like “I knew it was going to be a disaster from the very beginning.” Apparently, A-listers were forewarned: calls went out to modeling agencies and agents telling them not to send their clients to the Bahamas. Funny how the same courtesy was not extended to the ticketholders, eh?
Ja Rule tweeted this: “I’m heartbroken at this moment my partners and I wanted this to be an amazing event it was NOT A SCAM as everyone is reporting. I don’t know how everything went so left but I’m working to make it right by making sure everyone is refunded.”
The model-celebrities who were paid to promote the festival on their social media are getting a lot of backlash too. Bella Hadid even had to tweet a half-hearted apology:
❤️… pic.twitter.com/5XqHXBGIn9
— Bella Hadid (@bellahadid) April 29, 2017
And if you want to laugh, check out all of the tweets on #FyreFestival. Some of my favorites:
This whole #fyrefestival thing, where rich white millenials are stuck on an island w/o power & food is like a beautiful Banksy installation
— Pascal Cremer (@b00giZm) April 29, 2017
the best #fyrefestival discourse yet pic.twitter.com/7Lw9l3MfDm
— Elyse Explosion 💣💥 (@elyseexplosion) April 29, 2017
Blessed be Comrade Ja for not only creating a gulag, but getting the rich to go and pay for it. Truly we have much to learn #fyrefestival
— Reid Elsea (@ReidElsea) April 29, 2017
Black Mirror will never be the same again #fyrefestival pic.twitter.com/5hUoUTQ264
— Kieran Glennon (@DrNightdub) April 29, 2017
Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.
Best. Story. Ever.
While I do feel for them on one hand as they were ripped off, its a bit of ‘what did you expect’ on the other. These kids have more money than common sense.
You just know their rich daddies are coming after JaRule and the organisers. There will be lawsuits.
It’s not as though anyone actually suffered, you know?
Silly entitled people paid shedloads to be not-peasants only to find themselves utterly peasanted at the ol Ja Rulag.
The people who organised it should hang their heads in shame. But it’s still hilariously funny!
I know and it is amusing and i agree with one of the tweets in the article, hopefully it’s a life lesson to those stupid enough to buy into the scam.
I don’t know what the people who bought tickets to this mess expected. From what I read most paid 3-5k for a private chartered flight, staying in a “villa,” chef-catered meals, unlimited alcohol… when something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is. If these big promises didn’t ping their BS radar, I don’t know what to say for them. Most of the ticket holders in the articles I read were like, “it sounded like a great deal!” — like, really?!
I hate to go against the grain but why should the attendees have been on scam alert? I don’t understand comments like ” if something is too good to be true…” etc etc. for people in these circles anything can be had for a price and they are well accustomed to white glove, five star exclusivity. Where was the unreasonable expectation in this?
@millenial I’ve been to Holidaze festival 3 times… the first time in Mexico and the last two times in the Dominican Republic. It’s a yearly destination festival with the same 3 headlining bands every year that play 3 times each throughout 4 days, plus 7-8 other bands and DJ’s. With flights and the resort stay (all inclusive) plus one pre-night and one post-night at the resort with my husband we spent around 5k-6k for a week long stay. Expensive, yes, but you are staying in a 5 star resort on a beautiful beach, there are 6+ restuarants and a buffet to choose from with excellent food, unlimited booze/beer, top notch service, and some of my favorite bands playing on the beach a short walk away from my room. Once you’re there the only thing you need to pay for is tips to the staff. It’s truly a great experience. Therefore I really don’t think that paying 3k-5k for Fyre Festival sounds too out of the norm if you’re into destination festivals or have been to one before. Destination festivals are getting more and more popular as a way to see live music and also take a vacation where you can really relax. It’s definitely a ‘grown up’ way to festival versus sleeping in a tent in the sun and waiting in line for an hour just to shower, and the crowd is usually mid twenties and up.
By the way, I’m not rich or a trust fund kid. The first time I went (6 years ago) I was making $12/hour. I just save up throughout the year and cut down on other things I don’t really need to pay for it. I had a group of 20+ friends from all over the US attend Holidaze last year and none of them are rich or trust fund kids.
Festivals are hard. Almost as hard as being president.
It’s almost as if some people lead lives almost entirely removed from everyone else’s and are shocked to discover reality!
Ha, this was pretty much my takeaway too. People who’ve always had the money to buy whatever they want yet haven’t taken the time to educate themselves about realities or actually work for anything…they’re helpless.
I wasn’t bashing rich people, I was bashing Trump. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being young and wealthy. Everything is relative and your reality is your own.
Megan, sure, if you mean the attendees. I assumed you were bashing the clueless organizers as well as Trump. Like him, they made some pretty big promises and seemed to have no idea how difficult it would be to deliver on them. Either that or it was a scam from the get-go. Both scenarios sound very Trump-esque to me.
I thought you meant the dipshit organisers AND the dipshit attendees AND the dipshit Commander-in-Chief, Megan!
I don’t think anybody should be cheated, but I won’t lie: it’s hard to feel sorry for- and not to laugh at – silly entitled twits who fall for the festival equivalent of the Nigerian prince email. It’s more Keystone Cops than schadenfreude.
I was laughing so hard at this. Such a scam. 12,000 for a music festival with Blink 182? Really?!
I also laughed because once again Kendall is in the middle of a PR mess.
Yes, the only thing that truly offends me is that Fyre is talked about like a music festival when it was never going to be that. Sure, there would have been music in the background, but if in 2017 you headline Blink 182, you’re not a music festival! I understand that Coachella/Glastonbury became too big in the past decade, but when you forget about the C-listers with ridiculous outfits, the setlists remain pretty amazing.
Fyre was always about pretending to be part of an “elite” group you don’t belong in. If you think you need to pay >$12K to be part of the elite, then, as Tywin Lannister would say, you’re not the true elite. It’s utterly nouveau riche and tacky, so it makes total sense that Kendall got involved in such a mess.
I can’t find much sympathy for the people who got scammed. Seems like The Emperor’s New Clothes has become just as much an important read than 1984 if we want to make sense of our times
This sounds like a great storyline for a horror movie where the rich get stranded on a private island and they were falsely led there by the promise of an experience they would never forget.
LOL! Oh Sixer, I was just thinking your comment as I was reading and it turned out to be comment no.1! 🙂
I’m not wealthy or jealous of their wealth and their decision to spend it any way they please. Festival-goers were swindled and mistreated, and that’s not cool at all. Would I spend this much money on a festival or TRUST a festival’s very first year off the ground in a foreign country? That’s really debatable. And hey, anyone who paid with a credit card can dispute the charge if the clowns don’t reimburse in full. Sucks.
I know it’s easy to make fun of these people because they are rich and spent a ton of money for a dumb festival, but that doesn’t make what happened to them acceptable. It’s incredibly rude and yes a scam for the production and modeling agencies and whatnot to inform their models not to attend, when they were paid to promote it, and not inform the people who paid to be there. Sure, this isn’t “true hardship”, but that doesn’t make it okay. The people paid for certain things and if they didn’t receive it then that’s a problem. Especially since the production knew ahead of time that it was going to be terrible for the people who paid to be there.
I don’t think anyone is letting the organizers off the hook. But if you read the accounts by the dupes that got duped. They went specifically because Gigi Hadad and Kendall Jenner tweeted they should go. They spent between a couple of grand up to 10 or 20k on a f–ing Blink 182 concert hosted by JaRule. And there was actually warning signs way ahead of the event.
So they were dumb dumbs. That got duped. And the #fryefestival tag gave me so much joy this weekend. I’m not ashamed of laughing my ass off at those fools. I’ll save my outrage for things like the Flint water crisis and Standing Rock.
“I know it’s easy to make fun of these people because they are rich and spent a ton of money for a dumb festival…”
No. It’s easy to make fun of these people because you can label any crap ‘exclusive’ and they will fork out loads of cash on it. Their stupidity is priceless!
This is what happens when you let bags of money do all your thinking. Sweet.
But is anyone saying that the organizers are off the hook? In fact, couldn’t you say that because they’ve ripped off people with money they’re actually more likely to face consequences?
The apologies from the organizers basically blame the fact that “all the sudden people started showing up” and that a storm wrecked their site. They sold them tickets, the nitwits should have known people were coming! Did they really think anyone would pay for a villa and then see a tent and just go with it?
Sure. They advertised tickets up to 12k but from what I read on Reddit the majority of the actual purchasers only spent hundreds, buying early at very reduced rates.
I don’t know why this post landed here. Not a reply to Angel.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting the organizers aren’t responsible for their role in this mess, but at the end of the day, the fact remains that anybody who can front $12000 for a music festival is going to be fine one way or the other. Either they have enough money to swallow the loss, or they have the resources to sue and recoup the money (and likely more) in court. So my sympathy is pretty limited. These people had a shitty experience, but they didn’t truly suffer one way or another.
With that kind of money that they threw away for a festival, lives could have been saved. Or as somebody else said, all this money and Flint still has no water.
This was even covered on our local news yesterday and I had to laugh at the sad tents and the lockers in the middle of nowhere. The twitter comments above are pure gold! 🙂
The tweets are amazing. We should all be grateful for the comedy this has provided.
This story has been making my week. I’m evil and I don’t care. Shows you what happens when you spend stupid amounts of money for exclusivity instead of participating and creating.
I am usually very empathetic, but it’s hard to feel any for a bunch of kids who paid up to a quarter of a million dollars to see Blink 182 and that dude Tyga. It just seems nobody researched the festival, organizers or conditions of the island prior to going, they just trusted the insta models to believe it was legit. Lesson learned for a lot of folks.
“They overlooked so many very basic things. And baby, they forgot to make me sign an NDA.”
Hahaha…that NYMag article was great!
Did any of you see the pictures someone posted of an organizer’s notebook? It was found on the ground, and it’s full of gems… like a to-do list dated 4/14 that includes “visit site at some point”.
Haha yes! My personal favorite was the snack offerings list…. “Chips?”
I don’t like it when anyone gets scammed, rich or poor. When the rich get scammed they recover, full refund, tax write-off, etc. When the poor or middle-class gets scammed they just get scammed. Either way it’s greed and corruption and it’s unacceptable.
ITA, I get tired of the narrative that middle and working class people are victims when they get scammed, but rich people are idiots who deserved to be cheated out of their money when they get scammed. Corruption and criminality should not be determined based on the victim’s economic status.
I agree. But the twitter comments still make me chuckle.
Regardsless of economic position if you pay that much money to blink 182 and ja rule you got what you deserved.
I agree 1000%. I don’t like laughing at anyone’s distress.
These people were trapped without food, water or shelter. Me at 20 year old me, had I been in possession of too much cash…that *definitely* could have been me. There were so-called reputable names attached to this. Even the billionaires on yachts were fooled!
So no, unless you were connected to someone who was forwarded, I’m not sure how you could have seen through this scam.
This story and last week’s post about the Fox News anchor and her botched plastic surgery makes me grateful to be in the middle class. I can afford clean water and food, but cannot afford to take a chance on dodgy music festivals or space age laser treatments. Praise Jesus 😉
The kids should be thankful for recieving this lesson early in life with (relatively) little consequence. I hope their parents get their money back and I hope to see the criminals serve time.
This whole event must be fascinating from a social scientist point of view. I hope someone writes a think piece on it.
If people were smart this would be a great lesson about the dangers of “exclusivity” and the social media marketing/”celebrity” images phenomenon (aka all that glitters is not gold) taking place currently, but no one will. This will happen again on a lesser scale and in fact already is (overpriced “celebrity” products, clothing lines, lifestyle brands, tv shows, etc.)
Call me naive, but I truly think Ja Rule and the other creator had no idea it was gonna be this bad/tried to deliberately scam people. The optics look terrible for their reputations, and if it was a scam shouldn’t it have been passable enough to keep the scam going for a few years? I just can’t believe that it would’ve gotten this bad before the event , and they wouldn’t have stepped in or canceled.
My personal favorite tweets were the ones referencing that ballpit from Dashcon a few years back 😂
Lynnie,
That’s what I don’t get. If it was a deliberate scam, the “organizers” had to know it was going to ruin them professionally, so what’s the point? If it wasn’t a scam, what did they think was going to happen when they didn’t actually deliver?
Money was spent on promotion and chartered flights, so after the refunds and lawsuits everyone involved will be financially ruined. What was the point of any of it?
The creator, and I’m too lazy to google his name, has done this before. He created some kind of app a few years ago for people in big US cities to have a concierge service where you’d get access to special events, big name musicals (Hamilton), travel-and it was all a huge scam. He’s a con artist.
If you read the NY Mag article(which is golden) I don’t think it was a true scam in that they intended to put on the event and the models would have gone. But they were utterly inept, unprepared, and unfit to do it in that location. When they realized the site wasn’t going to be prepared on time instead of canceling and refunding they decided to do everything half assed. Then all the talent, models, and corporate sponsors pulled out. Still they let people show up to the Caribbean.
The event organizer never should have been hired. He was 25 and had no experience with an event of the intended size.
“Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”
… That pretty much sums it all, doesn’t it? I don’t think that they really wanted to scam people (although this is far from MacFarland’s 1st failing attempt at that kind of “elite” experience thing, so I’m starting to think he is a bit of a con man), but geez! They didn’t do their research and they are entirely responsible for this fiasco (yes Ja Rule, IT’S YOUR FAULT).
They’re a bunch of posers who didn’t want to listen when people who actually know how to run this kind of events told them it couldn’t be done. They spent all the money they earned on promoting the event and (maybe) spending time with the Insta models during the promo shoots. In some ways now, they are legends indeed.
They also tried to highjack a local festival on the island that has taken place for 60 years so they could use the venue
Can you imagine the entitlement that takes?
Did they? Then they’re even worst than I thought
LOLOL, I remember hearing about that Dashcon ball pit!
My favorite tweets were the old Dave Chappelle video asking “where’s Ja Rule” and the @Complex video demonstrating how to make a Fyre Fest cheese sandwich. So wrong. So funny.
I mean I would feel some sympathy but if you pay $12K to see Blink-182 in 2017 then all I have to say is natural selection is working its magic.
True. Except there was no thinning of the herd. Just excessive inconveniencing and disappointing of the herd.
Kendall is also being called out because she received 250k for her promotion, and didn’t disclose it was sponcon.
And this story is killing me. The young guy, who previously did the stupid VIP concierge card, is 25 and dropped out of college in his first year. He has zero experience with event planning. Whoever he convinced to give him chance on a festival of this size, instead of people with way more experience, kind of deserves it.
Also, he wants to do it again next year.
This whole thing is too perfectly catastrophic, it’s feels like satire on tv. Its the absolute best.
That’s exactly it! It’s the Truman Show of festivals!
(BTW and OT – do you remember our conversation about David Nutt the other day? Here he is, being all sensible again – and completely ignored, again. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/28/spice-drug-cost-taxpayers-antidote-government-policy.)
oh that’s a good read, thanks for the share. he’s so well spoken/written, how do people not listen?
How frustrating must it be to know you are right, to be a leader in the field, and to be dismissed because someone , or someone, in power just don’t feel like it.
There’s something interesting there about the things people choose to believe and invest in. The total amount of money that went to Fyre festival, basically bilked from marks by a young attractive conman, could have been used to fund something hugely important. No offence to Dr Nutt, but science isn’t sexy like nickleback I guess.
“Sadly, just a few months ago, the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs refused to make it available for this purpose on the spurious grounds that a note in a 1974 paper said that when given intravenously in high doses it was a little like d9THC.”
And here is political action retarding scientific growth, yet again.
I would love to discuss/keep abreast of this type of stuff, do you (or anyone) know any good blogs/sites for that? Like CB for science/health?
I usually just ready the news and department publications, but it’s the discussion I’d like, and most comment sections you need hip waders for the bs.
Is there anything Kendall, Bella and co promote that isn’t sponcon? It should be clear to everyone at this point that there’s nothing genuine about promoting a product on social media.
The story is ridiculous. A young con-man (because that’s what he is, his previous concierge app was a scam too and very few got a refund) meets Ja Rule, they have some piloting lessons and end up on an island (one doesn’t just “end up on an island during lessons” btw) and they decide that they’ll set up an super exclusive festival there within a twelvemonth? People actually believe it’d work and front them money? And people paid thousands of dollars to go see Blink 182 play because they think that’s what the “elite” would do? We’ll soon hear that the organizers were hired to teach at TrumpU. I tremendously enjoy the whole debacle
Blink 182 and Nickleback, even Ja Rule.
That’s part of what’s slaying me, why are the headliners from the late nineties?
If Blink 182 were suppose to be the headline act and you paid that much to go then personally you should hang your head in shame. I liked them back when they ok but even my taste in music has come a long way, I know the difference between bad and just plain crap.
I don’t feel sorry for any of these people-
The organizers obviously didn’t know what they were doing and did it anyway.
The models were all paid (in one way or another) to promote something they didn’t go to and probably never were going to, and with the exception of one half assed “apology”, none of them have acknowledged this mess. Kendall Jenner is posting topless selfies instead.
The people who bought tickets obviously have an extra 12K laying around to go to a super exclusive concert so they can avoid being around the peasants, so I’m reasonably certain that they’re not going to miss the money.
All these a**holes are examples of how wealth in absence of common sense and personal responsibility doesn’t ALWAYS mean you walk away free.
The best part for me is that I’m glad to see “the extra hour in the ball pit” meme is still alive.
I feel bad that people got scammed. I just don’t get the allure of the event. None of the bands that were supposed to play would have enticed me to pay that amount of money for a festival. And Instagram models promoting it would have been a red flag for me from the start. They will promote anything as long as they get paid.
I’m also surprised that Emily Rata hasn’t issued an apology since she looks for any opportunity to make something about her.
Seems like the *perfect* time for YET ANOTHER of Emily’s toooootally coincidental and not called daily bikini pap stroll of her very best “Seen for the first time since…/looking morose/I’m sorry you guys, heartbroken” sex pout.
Actually she did pose topless, it’s her in the picture with the boots that Kendall posted. Everybody thought it was Kendall, but it’s actually EmRata.
None of it sounds appealing. I think it was a scam from the start.
If anyone had googled the creator’s name they would have seen the guy is a total scam artist.
Reminds me of that thing with Tumblr, Dashcom or some such thing. Where the attendees were asked to pony up more money to help the organizers pay their fees, and the bouncy castle/epic ball pit turned out to be an inflatable garden pool filled with some plastic balls dumped in the middle of a small banquet room.
I thought after all the uproar surrounding that these millenials would’ve researched more into the organizers and not just be blind/deaf/dumb sheep following whatever their idols say. Also don’t they have parents who know how to vet these things or who have people to vet these things? Their parents must’ve been rich and have these sorts of ability in place.
I mean, I’m not rich by any means and the festivals the kiddies in my extended family beg to attend are never going to be expensive as this, but we as adults know how to burn phones and internet lines to research everything to death before shelling out even a penny. From common questions like how reputable are the organizers, what are their refund policies, and general terms of sales, to scary what-if questions like what if something happened to the kid (especially when the event is held in another city/country/island).
Huh…The jeans and bikini candids show that Bella DOES have more than one expression: dead eyes. She’s never looked better, IMHO.
I know this was a pretentious, rich kid thing but they paid a lot of money expecting something incredible and the people behind it did not deliver. They are lucky something more serious didn’t happen. They need to be held accountable. When I pay for something I expect to get what I was promised. Especially when it isn’t cheap. I get why people are so angry. This was a s***show from the beginning.
To a certain extent, buyer beware. “Something incredible” being a Blink 182 concert – and even they pulled out beforehand.
No sympathy, mainly because I don’t understand how anyone thought Ja Rule had anything relevant to contribute in 2017.
Haha. That’s exactly what I wondered. Like is he even remotely relevant to millennials? Relevant enough to empty their pockets because someone said the “cool kids” were doing it? The last I remember hearing anything from Ja Rule was in the late-90s and early-00s before his prison sentence.
And who appointed Ja Rule the connoisseur of expensive and fine taste? It wasn’t as if Jay-Z organizied the event.
Mashable.com reported there were $400K packages available that included a private house for 8 along with “talent.” I tell you what, if I decide to spend a half a million dollars on a music festival, my “talent roommates” sure as hell would not include Blink 182 and Ja Rule. It freakin’ better be John, Paul, George, and Ringo firing up the grill on the back patio.
“Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”
Did this guy think it was going to turn into another Woodstock? Even Woodstock was well planned, they even had the money to pay all of the talent up front (and great talent, they didn’t play for cheap). They’re only mistake was underestimated the crowd size.
I do feel badly for the people stranded, it can get pretty dangerous when people are trapped like that, but come on, paying thousands for Blink-182? Tyga?
Interesting that it was Tyga and Kendall in the mix and not Tyga and Kylie.
I just saw the advert video of what the festival was supossed to look like..it’s all hot girls..how rapey is that…girls at your disposal? No hot guys anywhere, like this festival was only meant for bros…
Yes it was promoted in a disgusting way and the whole thing is just revolting. It makes me think of a high rise they used to advertise in a LA newspaper with a blonde in a man’s shirt and a fedora, sort of “move here and you’ll get this classy care-free call girl.” yuck.
So these yacht girls are now island girls..
Image, self-promotion, false promises and fakery trump basic competence, experience and just doing the real unglamorous work. True of both organizers and attendees. Welcome to our present.
My favorite part was a comment from Ja Rule saying he accepted 100% responsibility, but IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT. Um…that’s not accepting responsibility then.
While I side eye the people who would spend so much money to go to a festival headlined by Blink 182 that Ja Rule put together, reading the NYMag article and the firsthand account of the hubris and idiocy…is mind-blowing. Ja Rule and all the jerks who put this together are, at best, incompetent and, at worst, crooks.
But more than that, the NYMag article reminds me of the trump administration – just the arrogance and the, “Let’s do this and be legends!” without knowing the basics. This is literally what’s going on in the country.
I’d feel almost bad for Blink 182 for being the targets of so much snark, except since they backed out before the disastrous news went global, they actually seem sort of badass. Like, this is the most press they’ve ever gotten.
All the people I knew who had tickets paid well under $1000 for them.
They still got ripped off.
I have laughed and enjoyed the schaedenfreude of Frey Festival so much.
Looking forward to hearing about how the first MarsFest turns out for them all.
I actually didn’t think the cheese sandwich picture looked that bad….
LOL! If you had to get a second mortgage on your house for that sandwich?
It was processed cheese product, not real cheese. But, the bread looked fresh. LOL
6 figures? Are you including the decimal point in that? Cause it’s usually not included. Tickets were $500 if you got them early or a couple thousands- $12000 for four (so $3000 a ticket) + whatever airfare to get to Miami.
So where was Ja Rule? Guess he’s not always there when you call.
Did you read the organizer excuse? He said more people showed up than they expected. Cause you know, they had no idea how many people were coming. It’s not like they could count the number of tickets sold or anything.
My favorite tweet was: when you go to fyrefestival expecting Ja Rule, but it turns out to be Ashanti town.
yes, I thought that one was very witty!!
Yeah, it was a scam. They tried to pass off tents as deluxe accommodations and cheese with bread as gourmet food. They had no intention of delivering what they promised.
I for one spent all of Friday Ugly Laughing til I cried at every new Luxurious accommodation vs reality pic and sh*t … when even Blink 182 abandoned their Base ..ewdwewiewejuiw THEY GOT STOOD UP BY JA RULE IN 2017 weuhlwehwelh I’m CRYING again
Good to see the entitled rich get what they deserve for once.