Photo Credit: Today.com
Billy McFarland says Fyre Festival 2 is officially happening—though he won’t be in charge of the details. The convicted fraudster spoke with Today about what went wrong and how he hopes Fyre Festival 2 will go off without a hitch.
“Fyre 2 is real. My dream is finally becoming a reality,” Billy McFarland said at the opening of the interview. “Fyre 2 really isn’t about the past, and it’s not really about me. It’s about taking the vision, which is strong,” McFarland continues. Currently, the festival has no headliners to announce, but a festival operator has been brought on to handle those details. McFarland says hotel, travel, and ticketing companies are also on board to handle the logistics.
“We’re going to have artists across electronic, hip-hop, pop, and rock,” McFarland says of the potential line-up. He’s once again billing the music festival as an experience rather than just another place to hear your favorite band. “However, it’s not just music. We might have a professional skateboarder do a demonstration. We might have an MMA champion teach you techniques in the morning.”
Billy McFarland has been speaking about the potential for a second round of Fyre Festival since he was released from prison in 2022. He was originally sentenced to six years in federal prison in October 2018 for fraud related to the original Fyre Festival. He only served four years due to the First Step Act, which enables inmates to earn increased good conduct time served.
The original Fyre Festival was billed much the same way McFarland seems to be starting with Fyre Festival 2. The experience was sold on social media as a luxury music destination festival, with lush yurts on the beach for a glamping experience. When attendees arrived, they were treated to naked mattresses on the bare sand in tents that looked like they belonged to a refugee camp rather than a glamping destination festival.
“Since 2016 Fyre has been the most talked about music festival in the world,” McFarland continues. “Obviously, a lot of that has been negative, but I think that most people, once they kind of get under the hood and study the plans and see the team behind Fyre 2, they see the upside. And if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry.”
McFarland has never stopped being an ideas guy. That qualifier, “if it’s done well” remains ever important here. Anyone can talk about doing a music festival, but can McFarland assemble a team to do it well? And will the general public give him another chance? There’s always a cadre of social media influencers who will buy tickets just to film—whether it’s an amazing swan-like turn-around or if Fyre remains the ugly duckling of the live music industry.
Either way, Fyre Festival 2 is slated to run from May 30 to June 2. The original festival was based on the island Great Exhuma in the Bahamas. The Fyre Festival 2 home will be in Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. McFarland says the festival would utilize existing infrastructure for eateries, lodging, and restrooms instead of trying to build an experience from scratch.
2,000 tickets for the festival went on sale today, ranging in price from $1,400 to $1.1 million. As of the time of writing, none of the access tiers appear sold out. The tickets note that accommodations are separate from the ticket price and must be purchased separately using a link in the confirmation email sent to attendees for both the $1,400 and $5,000 ticket tiers.
