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I Worked at Fyre Festival. It Was Always Going to Be a Disaster.

In early March, a friend of mine texted me to ask if I wanted to be a talent producer for the Fyre Festival. I’d never heard of it, but the gig involved going to the Bahamas and being paid extremely well. So I said yes and packed my bags. The festival was supposed to be a luxury music retreat where elite millennials could mingle with “influencers” and models. Tickets cost between $1K and $125K, gourmet food and accommodations were promised. I was planning to spend the next two months working on the festival, but a mere four days after I arrived I was back on a plane to New York because the whole thing, as everyone now knows, was a complete disaster. I was briefly involved in the planning of the event and got a front-row seat to chaos.

On March 14, I flew from Miami to the island of Great Exuma to get the planning started. I was excited, at least at first. Flying in, the water looked beautiful — but I was almost immediately warned not to go near it because of a rampant shark problem. That was an omen I regrettably missed.
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Life Lessons From the Great Fyre Festival Disaster

After we landed, we drove to the festival site to assess our goods. When we arrived, my initial reaction was “huh.” This was not a model-filled private cay that was owned by Pablo Escobar. This was a development lot covered in gravel with a few tractors scattered around. There was not enough space to build all the tents and green rooms they would need. There was not a long, beautiful beach populated by swimming pigs. There were, however, a lot of sand flies that left me looking like I had smallpox. Still, I had hope.

My job as a talent producer was to coordinate travel and on-site logistics with the artists who would be performing: Blink 182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, among others, had already signed on. I would be working with an 11-person team and a few of the festival executives. The production team was all new hires and, before we arrived, we were led to believe things had been in motion for a while. But nothing had been done. Festival vendors weren’t in place, no stage had been rented, transportation had not been arranged. Frankly, we were standing on an empty gravel pit and no one had any idea how we were going to build a festival village from scratch.

Pending disaster aside, I started working from an island rental house. I contacted the booked artists’ tour managers to start to coordinate. Almost all of them had the same question for me, which was along the lines of, “Hey … Where’s our money??” I tried to email the business manager to get an answer, who said something like “stand by” for three days in a row. By the end of the week it became clear they would not pay the people they owed.

On Wednesday, Ja Rule arrived for a “site visit.” I don’t know if he actually visited the “site” but he did spend a lot of time on a yacht, according to his Instagram. Meanwhile the event planners were holed up indoors putting together a game plan and a budget. With so little having been prepared ahead of time, the official verdict was that it would take $50 million to pull off. Planners also warned that it would be not be up to the standard they had advertised. The best idea, they said, would be to roll everyone’s tickets over to 2018 and start planning for the next year immediately. They had a meeting with the Fyre execs to deliver the news. A guy from the marketing team said, “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”

At this point it was pretty clear that this was a mess and I shared my concerns with the man I reported to. But he assured me that the Fyre execs were legit, and said some socialite was underwriting the whole thing. The budget was okayed and we were told to carry on with our planning. That night Ja Rule gave a toast. “To living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and fucking like porn stars.” If Ja Rule is punished for anything perhaps it should be that.

Still, we proceeded. Thursday night we flew to Miami where we would work with a fully functioning internet connection. The artists still hadn’t been paid. It was my job to try and be charming while explaining to tour managers that no, there still was no money or a technical director for the festival. There was, somehow, a secured alcohol sponsor, however. This whole thing was playing out as a hilarious disaster. It was clear to most of us that nothing was going to come together at this rate.

The next day, things really started to fall apart. On Friday, lots of people on the production team got fired. I did not get fired. I did get a phone call that same night that said something along the lines of, “Congratulations, the guys will allow you to continue to work on the festival! For two thirds of what you asked for. And we’re not paying the artists yet.” So with that, I quit. I told the tour managers I had been in contact with that I was going to take myself off the project. And then I flew back to New York and waited eagerly for six weeks to see how Fyre Festival would play out.

Then yesterday, to my dark delight, the rug was pulled out from under them. In the morning headliner and all-around relevant band in 2017 Blink-182 pulled out, citing sub-par production standards. Last night the festival evacuated almost everyone off the island on account of they didn’t have food or tents for anyone (minor details). Today, after a wild night of #fyrefestival terror broadcast on social media, Fyre announced the festival would be indefinitely postponed.

I cannot explain how or why the bros running this festival ignored every warning sign they were given along the way. The writing was on the wall. I saw it firsthand six weeks ago. They overlooked so many very basic things. And baby, they forgot to make me sign an NDA.

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Paradise Lost: Luxury Music Festival Turns Out To Be Half-Built Scene Of Chaos

Perhaps you're a person who buys festival wear but finds Coachella too plebian. Perhaps you find other music festivals off-putting because you can't bring your own yacht. Or maybe you just think it sounds awesome to hang out on an island in the Bahamas and you have a few thousand dollars to blow.

In that case the Fyre Festival was supposed to be the event – nay, cultural moment! – for you.

(And yes, that's FYRE, not fire, because it was going to be LIT. And also because Fyre Media Inc. is the name of rapper Ja Rule's talent-booking company, which organized the luxstravaganza, or #dumpsterfyre, as you'll soon see.)

In a promo video posted in January full of frolicking models, the Fyre Festival promised (in seemingly random order) "the best in food, art, music and adventure / once owned by Pablo Escobar / on the boundaries of the impossible / Fyre is an experience and festival / A quest / to push beyond those boundaries."

Thursday was to be the first day of the two-weekend event.

"You'll be flown roundtrip on a custom, VIP configured Boeing 737 aircraft between Miami International Airport and Exuma International Airport on Great Exuma," said the festival's website. "Guests will be staying in modern, eco-friendly, geodesic domes. ... Unplug from the everyday and ignite your flame in the Exumas."

The acts scheduled to perform included Major Lazer and Blink-182, as well as a DJ "who specializes in producing '70s and '80s rock remixes for clients that include Middle Eastern and European royalty," as The Wall Street Journal reported.

The organizers built buzz by having celebrities tweet and Instagram about the festival. In a now-deleted tweet from March 27, Ja Rule wrote, "This is where the cool kids will be April 27-30 May 5-8!!! #fyrefestival #fyre."

Ticket prices were steep – but of course they were, since it was going to be "the cultural event of the decade." The Los Angeles Times reported in January that passes, which included accommodations and chartered flights from Miami, started at $1,595 and stretched to $399,995, which included dinner with a performer. (Though prices varied widely according to accommodation, and attendees interviewed by NPR said tickets could be had for as little has $900.)

But there were signs of trouble in paradise.

According to Journal's article from April 2, the organizers missed a series of payments to performers, though it had begun making progress in paying them. The newspaper noted that festivals typically lose money in their early years, and face high upfront costs.

No matter. Just days before the festival was to begin, @fyrefestival was shaking the sand out of its hair and Instagramming without concern.

But there was to be no dancing on the beach.

Yesterday, ticketholders began arriving at the festival, and found the site in disarray. Instead of the promised (and paid for) villas and lodges, festivalgoers found instead row after row of the same white tents.

"You just get dropped off on this island, and you're just standing there," said Seth Crossno, who had flown to the Bahamas with three other friends from Raleigh. "It looked like a disaster relief area." He said that cars and trucks were driving around, and that shipping containers littered the area.

Crossno said a man stood on a table shouting out directives.

"They had no way to communicate with anybody," said Crossno. "I don't know why no one went on the main stage and got on the microphone to get the crowd's attention and tell people what was going on. Just total incompetence." He added that house music blared in the background.

He estimated that a thousand people were there, and more kept arriving.

Crossno arrived at the festival around 5:30 p.m. Thursday night, and within a couple of hours, he and his friends were trying to get off the island. "It was a huge mess from the start," he said. Together, Crossno said he and his friends paid about $12,000 to attend.

Janan Buisier, who traveled from Dallas, said she spent more than $1,300 to go to the event. At first, she and her friends wanted to make the best of a bad situation, she said, "but then we saw how it started getting dangerous." She said the site didn't have enough security, lights, or food.

"You were promised chargers for your phone — did not get that," Busier said. "You were promised food — we were like starving. And you were promised safety, you were promised to be taken care of, you were promised an experience of a lifetime. And yes, it was quite the experience, but not in a positive way."

The festival started arranging flights to get people back to Miami, including ones that Crossno and Buisier were able to get on.

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism tweeted out a statement Friday morning, saying it was "extremely disappointed in the way the events unfolded yesterday" and said that although it was not an official sponsor of the festival, it had lent its support when asked. "The event organizers assured is that all measures were taken to ensure a safe and successful event but clearly they did not have the capacity to execute an event of this scale."

It added that it hopes festival visitors would consider returning to the Bahamas in the future "to truly experience all of our beauty."

Not long after, the Fyre Festival website posted its own statement:

"

    Fyre Festival set out to provide a once-in-a-lifetime musical experience on the Islands of the Exumas.

    Due to circumstances out of our control, the physical infrastructure was not in place on time and we are unable to fulfill on that vision safely and enjoyably for our guests. At this time, we are working tirelessly to get flights scheduled and get everyone off of Great Exuma and home safely as quickly as we can. We ask that guests currently on-island do not make their own arrangements to get to the airport as we are coordinating those plans. We are working to place everyone on complimentary charters back to Miami today; this process has commenced and the safety and comfort of our guests is our top priority.

    The festival is being postponed until we can further assess if and when we are able to create the high- quality experience we envisioned.

    We ask for everyone's patience and cooperation during this difficult time as we work as quickly and safely as we can to remedy this unforeseeable situation. We will continue to provide regular updates via email to our guests and via our official social media channels as they become available.

    -The Fyre Festival Team"

Whether the circumstances were truly out of the Fyre Festival's control will probably be a matter for the lawyers. Crossno, who on Friday morning was back in Miami after a very strange trip, said that if he doesn't get his money back, he will sue.

But first, he has a warning for those who bought tickets for next weekend: "Do not go to this festival," he said. "It's a scam. It's not real."

All Things Considered producer Greg Dixon contributed to this report.

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Burke Dennings said:
I feel bad for the folks who went, but at the same time, I think it's pretty funny.  The writing was on the wall months ago, several sites reported that it was likely a fraud, and there was that "fyrefraud" twitter account.  They should've seen it coming.  It'd be a lot less funny if anyone had been hurt, but no one was.

The official Fyre Festival website has this hilarious non-apology open letter up, and they're hyping Fyre Festival 2018 already, lol.  Like anyone in their right mind is gonna go.  They're promising that anyone who went this year will get free VIP tix to next year.  I don't get that- if there are like 2000 VIPs, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a VIP pass?  The whole thing is just so bizarre.  It's funny that Ja Rule finessed these dumb millennials out of a boatload of cash, but he & his partners should never try to throw a fest ever again.

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