Spending the weekend getting drunk in the Bahamas while listening to the hottest artists sounds like a dream to anyone, right? Well, unfortunately for this group of millennials, that dream never became a reality. Fyre Festival, presented by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule, was designed to be a one of a kind music festival and ready to take on big competitors like Coachella and Ultra. Festival attendees paid tickets, ranging from $1,000 - $125,000, to watch performances from mega artists like Blink 182 and Major Lazer while also enjoying the beautiful Bahamian beaches.While there were no official advertisements from Fyre Festival themselves, the event was heavily promoted by celebrities such as Ja Rule, Kendal Jenner, and Bella Hadid. Fyre Festival was designed to attract wealthy elite millennials and high-end celebrities. But when attendees arrived, they were in for a big shock.
As audiences gathered at the festival campgrounds, they were greeted by a barren landscape with only a few tents set in place and a handful of portapotties. There were no stages, hardly any areas to get food, and no plumbing. Videos and images from Snapchat show crowds gathered by the thousands just to get tents to sleep in for the night. All in all, it was a huge disaster.
Saturday morning, Fyre Festival issued a press release apologizing for all of the inconveniences experienced by the festival attendees. In their press release, Fyre Festival explained that they were unprepared and did not expect such a high volume for attendance saying, "The team was overwhelmed. The airport was jam packed. The buses couldn’t handle the load. And the wind from rough weather took down half of the tents on the morning our guests were scheduled to arrive. This is an unacceptable guest experience and the Fyre team takes full responsibility for the issues that occurred." Fyre Festival is currently working on paying full refunds to all of the festival attendees and promises that all who experienced the inconvenience will receive free VIP tickets to next year's event.
But that did not stop Twitter from roasting the events that occurred this weekend. The tweets and memes that have originated from this are pure internet gold.
@omgitsryguy: "#fyrefestival right now"
@gdholtby: "Live from the VIP area of #fyrefestival"
@MERKJONES : "The #fyrefestival was the biggest, most successful festival, with the best headliners in the history of mankind; PERIOD. "