Welcome back Billy McFarland and a new Fyre festival. Shows you can’t keep a good fantasist down
Fresh out of jail, does it matter that his 2017 festival was one of the biggest social-media-driven deceptions of our time? Not a bit
“Since 2016, Fyre has been the most talked about festival in the world,” organiser Billy McFarland told a US broadcaster when tickets for Fyre 2 went on sale this week. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for wire fraud in 2018, related to his organisation of the first Fyre (he served only four). Whatever you think about the first Fyre – with its limp cheese sandwiches, its disaster-relief-tent accommodation, the absence of advertised headliners, the $26m of unpaid debt, the rats (were the rats influencer hyperbole? Perhaps, but on the other hand the festival happened on the parking lot of an abandoned resort development, and where else is a rat supposed to live?), you have to admit it lived up to one promise: it was legendary.
Wire fraud is any swindling that happens electronically, whether by text, email, phone or social media. It’s so easy to fall on the wrong side of that – you could commit it just by sending a round robin, asking for a million dollars. Really, all that is standing between so many of us and jail is the sucker who will give us a million dollars. It’s really the suckers who belong in prison, if you think about it. Anyway, back to McFarland. “Obviously, a lot of that [talk] has been negative … but if it’s done well, I think Fyre has the chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry,” he said.
Continue reading...-
Fyre Festival 2 tickets go on sale after spectacular flameout in 2017
Event organizer Billy McFarland went to prison for fraud after the first Fyre Festival epically failed. Now he's ready to get the party started — again.CBS News - 2d -
Fyre festival 2: tickets go on sale for follow-up to infamous disaster
No musical line-up has been confirmed but tickets to the Mexican sequel are now available with prices up to $1.1m. Tickets to the second Fyre festival have gone on sale this week, promising a more ...The Guardian - 2d -
WATCH: Fyre Festival 2 advertises ticket packages for over $1 million
Tickets went on sale Monday for Fyre Festival 2, nearly eight years after the infamous Bahamas festival that led to its founder being convicted of wire fraud.ABC News - 2d -
Fyre Festival 2 Announces Dates, Location, Ticket Prices
Eight years — and one prison sentence — later, Billy McFarland is back with another attempt at the event.The New York Times - 1d -
Jimmy Kimmel: ‘The Whole Country Is a Fyre Festival Right Now’
“I think it might be time to give the planet to the apes, because we’re finished,” Kimmel said on Tuesday.The New York Times - 1d -
Alarms raised over legitimacy of Fyre festival 2: ‘An event that does not exist’
Tourism and local officials in Mexico deny any knowledge of proposed follow-up to disastrous 2017 event. When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week , there was just one ...The Guardian - 2h -
Macron's message to Trump: 'You can’t be weak in the face of Putin'
French President Emmanuel Macron says he intends to tell Donald Trump that it’s in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans not to “be weak” in the face of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, amid ...ABC News - 6d -
Fyre Festival revived? Viral botched influencer event sets 'second chance' in Mexico
'Fyre Festival 2 is real,' at least that's what promoter and convicted fraudster Billy McFarland declares. Tickets for the latest iteration of the botched fest go on sale Monday.Los Angeles Times - 3d -
'It was time': Yanks welcome new facial-hair rule
New closer Devin Williams and several former Yankees stars helped nudge owner Hal Steinbrenner into changing the franchise's decades-old policy on facial hair.ESPN - 5d
More from The Guardian
-
Trump praises Starmer’s ‘hard’ lobbying as he again suggests UK will be exempt from US tariffs – live
Trump calls Starmer meeting ‘tremendously productive’ and says ‘we have a very good chance at arriving at a very good deal’. Trump-Starmer visit: the key takeaways European Commission ...The Guardian - 19m -
Social Security Administration could lay off up to 50% of its workforce, source says – live
Social Security Administration expected to lay off at least 7,000 people, but a source tells Associated Press reduction could be as high as 50%. As Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk ...The Guardian - 32m -
Gene Hackman and wife’s deaths ‘suspicious enough’ for investigation, warrant says
Warrant raises questions about scattered pills, after Betsy Arakawa’s body had ‘mummification in hands’. An active investigation is under way into the deaths of the Oscar-winning actor Gene ...The Guardian - 4h -
Michelle Trachtenberg’s cause of death undetermined as family declines autopsy
Gossip Girl and Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor, 39, died this week after being found unresponsive at her apartment. Michelle Trachtenberg’s natural talent shone in everything from Harriet the Spy ...The Guardian - 51m -
Pride Toronto loses corporate funding as Trump’s DEI purge has chilling effect
Canadian event loses three sponsors who also do business in the US to avoid being seen as supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Pride Toronto , one of the largest celebrations of LGTBQ+ people in North ...The Guardian - 1h
More in World
-
Francis’ Illness Raises a Hard Question: Who Governs if the Pope Can’t?
The Vatican says Pope Francis has continued making decisions and is improving, but his two-week hospital stay poses uncomfortable, unanswered questions about Vatican decision-making.The New York Times - 10m -
Trump praises Starmer’s ‘hard’ lobbying as he again suggests UK will be exempt from US tariffs – live
Trump calls Starmer meeting ‘tremendously productive’ and says ‘we have a very good chance at arriving at a very good deal’. Trump-Starmer visit: the key takeaways European Commission ...The Guardian - 19m -
Soucek extends West Ham’s revival and Van Nistelrooy’s Leicester woe
It has been a midweek of Premier League certainties being secured at both top and bottom. Place Leicester in the certainty category. Defeat at West Ham extended Leicester’s doomed, zombified lurch ...The Guardian - 26m -
In Greenland, Taking It All In With Snowy Jogs and Sled Dogs
On a nearly two-week reporting trip to the island, one Times reporter made time for exercise and ice fishing.The New York Times - 29m -
Social Security Administration could lay off up to 50% of its workforce, source says – live
Social Security Administration expected to lay off at least 7,000 people, but a source tells Associated Press reduction could be as high as 50%. As Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk ...The Guardian - 32m