We should probably start this article by stating that we are not saying that Fyre Fest 2 is a scam. We can’t know something like that for sure. What we can say is that when we reported last month that the event was booked without any kind of line-up, and the event scheduled for the end of May, with tickets going for up to $1.1 million dollars; none of this was a good sign of anything. But hey, at least it had a location! Until it didn’t, and now it has a different one.
The saga of Fyre Fest 2 has “disaster” written all over it. Originally it was announced that the event was going to be held on Isla Mujeres, in Quintana Roo, Mexico. That was directly from the event’s founder and convicted felon, Billy McFarland. The Mexican government on the other hand, said that they had not heard of any such event being booked. That sounds suspicious to say the least. At the time of that happening however, at least we got a list of performers. Well, one performer. Former NFL star Antonio Brown. He’s still on the line-up for the concert and still the only one announced, so that hasn’t changed. The location has though.
McFarland is now stating that Fyre Festival 2 will be held in Playa Del Carmen and the event will still be held from May 30th, to June 2nd. It’s also claimed that there will be 40 artists there. As of the time of this writing, McFarland has not announced who the other 39 acts will be. Let’s also remember too that last month, McFarland was incredibly vague about what the hell this festival will be about. He mentioned music at one turn but then skateboarding demonstrations and MMA champions teaching you things. So, all this is being planned with a venue change that’s announced two months before the festival?
To make this even more of a mess, as one article pointed out, the terms and conditions listed on the Fyre Festival website state there are no returns or refunds, “all ticket sales are final.” This is a bit of a contrast to where we first reported that refunds were being offered through Soldout.com, but it turns out that service is the verified resale partner for if tickets are sold out through Fyre directly. Again, not saying this is a scam but, how many dots do you need to connect before the shape of this turns out to be a giant red flag?
At this point, all we can say is this; if Fyre Festival 2 actually manages to launch in its intended and announced form, it would represent one of the most astounding achievements in the history of event planning. Just for kicks and giggles we decided to do a Google search for, “How long does it take to plan a music festival?” One of the results that came back was from the FestivalPro.com website that states the following, “Not allowing enough time to plan a music festival can have significant consequences with the infamous Fyre Festival being a great example of what not to do. Putting on a sizable brand-new international music festival in an unproven venue location was always going to take longer than 6 months.”
McFarland has two months with a venue he just announced and one confirmed performer. Your move Billy.
