If you saw beautiful models such as Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin having the absolute time of their lives on a remote island in the Bahamas promoting a music festival, you would think it was legit right? What if I told you that this island was once owned by Pablo Escobar and also Ja Rule was involved as well? On top of all of that, what if I told you that gourmet food and housing accommodations are also provided?
This was the millennials dream and businessman Billy McFarland promoted the sh*t out of it through various social media platforms. According to Cosmo, He paid the infamous Kylie Jenner and many more trending influencers to really hype this once in a lifetime music festival, the Fyre Festival.
Jenner was paid $250,000 to post a line-up of the festival on her Instagram which included artists such as Blink-182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, and Lil Yachty.
Oh, did I also tell you that there was going to be a million-dollar treasure hunt, and a chance to swim in the ocean with some adorable pigs?
This video announcement received over one million views, and that is when people put Coachella aside and Fyre Festival was in the spotlight.
Announcing Fyre FestivalYouTube
Within minutes, people were purchasing tickets. Some people spent $500 because they wanted to go to a cool place for spring break, while others such as blogger and podcaster Seth Crossno spent $45,000 on tickets, travel, and their "luxury" housing accommodations.
The anticipation is over, and the first day of Fyre festival arrives.
Guests started to fly in, and none of them were, in fact, Kylie Jenner or Bella Hadid, and chaos begins.
The private island owned by Pablo Escobar ended up being a just a small campsite on a beach with tents scattered, and in fact no private villas. To add more to the matter, the beds inside the tents were soaking wet.
The gourmet food that the guests got to eat was cheese and bread in a nice styrofoam box. Blink-182 never showed, neither did any other artist with musical talent.
This type of promising festival takes up to a year or more to plan and put together, and Billy attempted to do it in a short six to eight weeks.
People were upset, and I mean beyond upset. Billy had to end up canceling the festival while everyone was already there, and expecting to get their money's worth.
The workers that would put in hours and hours of work each day to make this festival happen quickly found out that they were not going to get paid. Now, the workers are upset along with the guests. Workers tried to find the people in charge and hold them hostage, and death threats were made as well.
It was every man for themselves at that point, and everyone was trying their best to get off that island.
Billy managed to scam thousands of people and investors and made them lose thousands and thousands of dollars all because of this "music festival." The music festival that was supposed to be a game-changer ended up being a total, and horrible disaster which got Billy into a million-dollar lawsuit.
After watching the "Fyre Fraud," on Hulu, and "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened," on Netflix, I realized how powerful social media is at influencing people. Society saw hot people having fun, and they wanted to be right there with them. People paid thousands for an event that should've cost them nothing.
