Fyre Festival crook Billy McFarland’s surprise return

The man who masterminded the disastrous Fyre Festival disaster is back — and he has a plan to do it all again.

It was billed as an exclusive VIP music extravaganza, backed by supermodels Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner.

But within hours of opening, Fyre Festival had became a global laughing stock.

And now the organiser of the disastrous event in the Bahamas has announced it is coming back — with top-price tickets costing more than a million dollars.

In 2017, thousands of wannabe influencers attending were left starving and stranded, with no running water or electricity, and only soggy mattresses and emergency disaster relief tents for shelter.

The world was hooked as ticketholders — some of whom had paid $A14,000 to be there — shared live updates from the site.

And when a picture of one of the sad, plain, cheese sandwiches in a styrofoam box given to attendees went viral, it told you everything you needed to know about the colossal festival failure.

Fyre Festival production stills. Picture: Netflix

The interest sparked two documentaries, with Netflix hit Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened detailing how investor Andy King got so desperate, he was willing to offer sex acts in return for the delivery of bottled water to the site.

Unbelievably, when creator Billy McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after being jailed for financial crimes related to Fyre, he announced plans to reboot “the most talked-about festival in the world”.

The convicted conman, who is said to have devised plans for Fyre II during a stint in solitary confinement, posted on social media: “This is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s f***king go.”

His claims were met with widespread scepticism, but yesterday he announced that a time and place had been set — a private island off Mexico from April 25 to 28.

And, incredibly, ticket prices will range from $A2100 to $A1.6 million for the most expensive festival package — which McFarland, 32, claims will include luxury yachts, scuba diving and island hopping.

Amazingly, he boasted the first round of 100 tickets, priced at $A745, were snapped up — even though no acts have yet been confirmed.

Bella Hadid promotes the disastrous Fyre Festival

Speculating on what entertainment he might provide for the festival reboot, McFarland said in a YouTube video while wearing a white spa robe: “Karate combat on the beach — I think that would be amazing. Having some extreme sports, having some comedy and some fashion.”

But it’s probably best to take anything the conman says with a pinch of salt — and former investor Andy warned yesterday there were already “a lot of red flags”.

McFarland’s original campaign began in December 2016, when 400 well-known social media users — dubbed Fyre Starters — were paid to post a picture of a simple orange tile to their Instagram pages.

The image’s caption invited followers to join them at the festival.

Kendall Jenner was allegedly paid more than $A400,000 to post on Instagram and Bella Hadid appeared in the promo clip on a yacht.

Organisers also uploaded a video to YouTube featuring a bevy of top models swimming in crystal-clear waters, swaying to music on the ivory sand and skipping waves on jet skis.

The text promised a festival taking place on the “remote and private island” Norman’s Cay, which was “once owned by Pablo Escobar”, the former Colombian drug king.

Acts were set to include Blink 182, Major Lazer and Migos.

Festival packages peaked with the $A610,000 “Artist’s Palace” — offering four beds, eight VIP tickets and dinner with one performer.

Excited punters snapped up every last ticket, leaving McFarland and rapper Ja Rule — another of the event’s main investors — rubbing their hands, but still with a festival to organise.

‘Our strategy was to ransack the tents’

They hit their first hurdle when the island’s owner banned them, angry they had exploited the association with Pablo Escobar.

Billy McFarland. Picture: Getty Images

They found a new site on the nearby, but populated, island of Great Exuma — on a building site awaiting a new development.

The web geeks who had developed the event’s app were asked to book the acts — and they are said to have run up huge bills with agents.

As the chaos intensified, Andy King was asked to engage in oral sex with a customs official to secure a shipment of drinking water.

In the Netflix documentary, he reveals a colleague pleaded: “Will you suck d**k to fix this water problem?”

He never actually had to do the deed, but went in “fully prepared”.

Every time they hit an obstacle, McFarland would jet off to New York and come back with another few million from investors. But suspicions began to grow online.

Twitter account @FyreFraud pointed out the event did not appear to be on a private island after all.

Yet revellers wanted to believe, and one balmy Friday night in April 2017, Miami airport was filled with stylish festival-goers ready to party.

Instead of a private jet as promised, they got an ordinary Boeing 737.

One social media influencer filmed herself on the flight, saying: “It’s actually worse than economy class.”

Ja Rule and Billy McFarland and scene from the Netflix documentary Fyre, about the failed Fyre festival. Supplied by Netflix.

At the island, guests were rushed to a “beach party” — at a restaurant — and plied with tequila. Meanwhile, at the festival site, organisers ran around putting up tents and stages.

Mobile phone footage from the TV documentary shows guests arriving by coach, seeing the conditions and yelling: “Turn this bus around!”

Instead of luxury beach huts, they saw white-domed tents of the type used for displaced hurricane victims.

The site was littered with cargo freight boxes of towels and sheets soaked by overnight rain.

They had been told the event would be catered by top restaurateur Stephen Starr, but were instead offered a few cheese sandwiches — with a photo of one going viral.

Within hours, news had spread around the world that this VIP shindig had become a farcical flop.

Mick Purzycki, who worked for McFarland, said: “A couple of powerful models posting an orange tile is what essentially built this entire festival. Then one kid with probably 400 followers posted a picture of cheese on toast and essentially ripped it all down.”

There were no flights back to the US that evening, so everyone had to stay the night.

One guest said: “There was a definite turning point when the sun went down. The camaraderie was over.”

Fuelled by the free tequila and an increasing rage, guests lugged any pillows and mattresses they could find into any free tent.

One guest said: “We didn’t want neighbours. Our strategy was to ransack the tents, rip holes and p**s on a few of the beds.”

One guest dubbed it “barbaric”. Another said: “Lord Of The Flies with Instagram’s top influencers.”

In the morning, it was announced that Fyre Festival was cancelled.

And in June 2018, McFarland was arrested for a separate fraud case, having earned $A150,000 from selling fake tickets to events such as Coachella and the Met Gala through his company, NYC VIP Access.

He pleaded guilty to the ticket scheme, as well as wire-fraud charges in relation to Fyre Festival.

He was sentenced to six years in prison in October 2018, and asked to forfeit $A39 million.

Ja Rule faced more than a dozen lawsuits filed by ticket buyers and investors but was cleared.

Despite everything, McFarland is desperate for Fyre to work this time round, and has even been meeting some of the people he worked with on the first disaster.

Former investor Andy, who said he met up with him several months ago to discuss a sequel, fears he “hasn’t learned a lot in prison”.

He told BBC News: “Billy has a gift. He’s got a lot of charisma.

“When he was 24, he walked into investment banking firms in New York and got them to invest $US29 million.”

He reckons Fyre II could be a “huge success” — but not if McFarland is “running the show”.

Andy added: “I’m just seeing a lot of red flags, and a lot of red lights.

“And I feel bad. It saddens me.”

This story was published by The US Sun and reproduced with permission

Originally published as Fyre Festival crook Billy McFarland’s surprise return