Billy McFarland addresses fans and apologizes for last minute cancellation of the Fyre Festival.
Earlier this week, the much awaited inaugural edition of the Fyre Festival had been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. The festival was supposed to be an over-the-top luxury experience in the Bahamas, with Victoria’s Secret models such as Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, and Bella Hadid creating quite the hype about it on social media. Unfortunately the back-to-back weekend festival was called off just on the first day even as attendees flocked in. The festival that was allegedly supposed to be bigger than Coachella itself, disappointed attendees and was barraged with criticism from fans. Check out The Sherp’s report here.
Credits: qz.com
Credits: gq-magazine.co.uk
Ticket holders took to social media to display their disgust and disappointment towards the organisation and the last minute cancellation of the festival. People were stranded on the first day and even had issues with flights being cancelled.
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Fyre Festival organizers, Billy McFarland and celebrity, Ja Rule, apologized profusely over the mishap. Billy McFarland even took to addressing the mishap to the media to apologize and explain the circumstances that caused the debacle.
Billy McFarland Ja Rule
Billy explains that the idea to start the Fyre Festival along with Ja Rule as a co-organiser was very personal to him and it was a trip the two took together to the Bahamas islands that sparked the inspiration to start a music festival there.
“I was a computer programmer, and after computers, the two things I love most are the ocean and, for some reason, rap music. So these three hobbies of mine somehow led me to meeting my partner, Ja Rule. Together, we became friends and business partners. For us, it was always a battle of pushing the limits. Once we got flying lessons together, we got on these really bad 40-year-old planes and flew from New York to the Bahamas – not really knowing the Bahamas very well – ran out of gas and landed in the Exumas and both of us immediately fell in love.”
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Unfortunately for the both of them, the event didn’t go as planned and received a lot of flak for the major organisational disruption in its initial year. The festival, with its exuberant beaches and paradise-like location, sure had people excited for the festival to roll out. Tickets were extravagantly priced and when festival attendees didn’t receive the welcome and luxury facilities they were expecting when they arrived on the first day, they lashed out at Fyre Media.
Billy McFarland explains the reasons for the festival having been cancelled as the unforeseen arrival of the storm that disrupted most of their tents and busted the pipe lines which caused organisational difficulties that they were unable to contain.
“The Exumas didn’t have a really great infrastructure – there wasn’t a great way to get guests in here – we were a little bit ambitious. There wasn’t water or sewage. It was almost like we tried building a city out of nothing and it took almost all of our personal resources to make this happen, and everything we had, to make this festival go on. We thought we were ready and built two different festival sites.”
Well for starters it sure seems like their lack of experience got the better of them in terms of organizing the festival under the circumstances. In lieu of their promised festival experience, Fyre Media ensured the appropriate accommodation of the attendees for the night.
While refunds to the vendors and ticket holders are under process, Fyre Media has announced that it will make up for its collapse this year with special ‘make-up’ dates to host the festival in the U.S. sometime in May this year. $1.50 per ticket will be donated to the Bahamian Red Cross. The festival will be an amalgam of music, dance and all things entertainment and will keep to its theme of being on water and the beach.