Many San Luis Obispo High School students were recently exposed to the Fyre Festival, a fantasy tropical music festival located in the Bahamas, through documentaries that have recently released on both Netflix (Fyre Fraud) and Hulu (Fyre). The Fyre Festival turned from a seemingly good idea to attend, into overpriced, disastrous failure last spring when a few individuals decided to create and promote a fantasy island getaway in the Bahamas. This event was geared towards extremely wealthy millennials and Instagram models with little time or proper preparation.
Fyre Festival, which promised a VIP experience on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas, turned into a nightmare situation as attendees were stranded with half-built huts to sleep in and cold cheese sandwiches to eat. It was scheduled to take place April 28–30 and May 5–7, 2017, on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma. The Caribbean getaway co-produced by first-time promoters Ja Rule and entrepreneur Billy McFarland, exploded into a steaming heap of dashed expectations, sketchy conditions on the ground and zero fun for the unlucky patrons who paid between $1,000 and $12,000 per ticket (or $250,000 for super luxe group VIP packages).
“It’s stupid how much it costs, it’s just a big exclusive vacation for the ultra-elite. Even if it had turned out the way it was supposed to, spending that much money is absolutely ridiculous,” said senior Cassidy Clark.
Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and many more top models were supposed to appear as they were each paid around $250,000 just to promote the event on their Instagram accounts. Blink-182, Major Lazer, Rae Sremmurd, Migos, and Skepta are a few of the big names on the line-up which attracted many to this event.
“I enjoyed the documentary and was surprised how much footage they had on the whole thing. I guess I’m still curious if the people who bought their tickets got their money back, more importantly, I hope those who worked and did preparation for this event were paid somehow,” said senior Molly Anthony.
Not only did the attendees suffer, but those who created art and worked for the festival were not paid. Many lawsuits that will take years to resolve have been opened against the creators. Billy McFarland, the 27-year-old founder of the company behind the festival, was sentenced to six years in prison in October and faces a $26 million forfeiture order. He is featured in an exclusive interview in the Hulu documentary.
