Where does one even start with Fyre Fest? Perhaps with noting that Billy McFarland, the founder of the infamous Fyre Festival, is a convicted felon, and fraudster. No one was surprised when Fyre Festival 2 was “postponed until further notice.” But we WERE a little shocked when the ‘brand’ was going to be licensed as a music streaming service, and laughed when it was demoted to a hotel pop-up experience.
But if you thought that was funny, now the rights to the Fyre intellectual property are being sold by McFarland on eBay.
There’s a level of absurdity to this that is borderline sad. McFarland said he was selling the intellectual property of Fyre in a “seven-figure deal”, but apparently that fell. What does a ‘totally legitimate businessman’ do in that case?
Why, sell it on Ebay instead!
The listing is a mishmash of absurdities. The bidding started at .01 cent, and is now above $200,000. What do you get if you actually win the auction? According to the listing, the brand name, registered trademarks, social media accounts, marketing assets, and more! (This reportedly includes artist and talent relationships.) Considering Fyre Festival 2 only had one announced artist in the form of Antonio Brown; doesn’t seem like much.
Clearly McFarland is leaning HARD into the concept of “any publicity is good publicity.” The description for the listing says to, “…own one of the most infamous cultural IPs in the world. This is your opportunity to take control of a brand that still trends every time it’s mentioned.”
Kinda love this badly-scanned totally legit document from the listing.
Sure, there’s a logic to that, but E. coli tends to trend when it’s mentioned in the media, but you don’t see people rushing to buy contaminated spinach. This isn’t so much a case of “see how the mighty have fallen” so much as, “see how a fraudster will try anything to make a buck.”
We would strongly caution anyone against buying the intellectual property rights to something like this on Ebay of all places. It’s kind of hard to do due diligence and valuation on something like an online auction site. And of course, you have to ask yourself, “If there is a legitimate valuation here, why is it being sold on Ebay instead of an actual business deal?” Maybe the winning bidder will have their dreams fulfilled by this, or maybe they’ll end up with a figurative tent on a beach. Or possibly just a literal one.
The sale is set to end on Tuesday, July 15th. We’ll let you know what the final price is.
