Last week, convicted Fyre Festival fraudster/organizer Billy McFarland made a big announcement about the second iteration of the festival. (Or first, if you consider that nothing but disaster happened on the first go round.) Billy truly promised that he’d worked out all the problems this time, in a 50-page plan he drew up during a seven-month stint in solitary, as part of the four years he spent in prison from the fallout of the original festival. Patron confidence restored! Anyway, Billy gave critical updates last week, like confirming the dates (May 30 – June 2), location (Mexico’s Isla Mujeres), and hotels partnering with Fyre for reduced rates on accommodations. Guess who all these updates were news to? The Mexican tourism board, and hotels mentioned by name on Fyre’s website. As someone from the tourism board bluntly put it: “this is an event that does not exist.” I guess contacting those folks are the kind of details that would’ve been addressed on a 51st page of his remastered plan.
Fyre Festival 2 “does not exist” according to an official statement from the tourist board in Mexico, despite the event claiming it is “real” on social media.
This comes after the festival and its founder, Billy McFarland, announced last month that its “real return” would take place from May 30 to June 2 at Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico. Tickets went on sale this week, and prices range from $1,400 to $25,000. Premium packages are being priced as high as $1.1 million.
However, the tourist board and local officials have since claimed that no festival exists. Speaking to The Guardian, Edgar Gasca, from the tourism directorate of Isla Mujeres, said, “We have no knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it. For us, this is an event that does not exist.”
Gasca was in Bogotá, Colombia for a tourism fair when he heard the news. He confirmed he had spoken to the minister for tourism in the state of Quintana Roo and the hotels listed as part of Fyre Festival 2, and none had been approached by the event.
The Guardian reached out to Impression Isla Mujeres, one of the luxury hotels at which Fyre promised accommodation, which claimed it had not received “any approach or enquiry with regards to the event” and that it was investigating it.
“The organisers didn’t even bother to approach the authorities,” said Gasca. “It’s very strange, because any manager knows that if you’re going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need municipal authorisation.
“I think they thought they would just announce it and see if it got traction, then ask for the permits halfway down the path,” Gasca added. “It’s a bit of a naive way to think.”
I hope Billy has kept his prison uniform clean! Dios mío. You guys, it’s just so dumb. Like, it’s so obviously dumb, that you’d think it was actually too dumb to happen (yet again!), which in turn I guess makes me the dumb one, in the end, for doubting the depths of dumb we’re plumbing in this timeline. As I’ve said before when covering Billy McFarland, maybe I would do better in this world if I were a bit more delusional. Maybe doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome isn’t crazy, after all! Or maybe some lunatic libs hired actors to impersonate the contacts quoted from the tourism board and hotels, all in a malevolent deep state plot to besmirch a bright young conman who will be president one day of the United States of America and Greenland. I legitimately don’t know anymore! But even in this cockeyed world, I still think it’s a pretty safe bet that I have a better shot having a guaranteed great time on my upcoming bargain-priced Caribbean vacation, than any of the poor saps souls shelling out their hard-inherited thousands to millions for Fyre Festival 2: The (Non) Reckoning.
Note by CB: After Kismet wrote this, Billy posted a video doubling down. He says the hotels gave misleading statements, that the team has this, and that he has all this in hand, guys!
Photo note by CB: This is Hot Slut of The Era Phoebe Price posing “with fake cash during a photoshoot at a Fyre Festival set up with Billy McFarland and Bella Hadid” and dated 1/30/19. (The original Fyre Festival was in late April, 2017.) RIP DListed. MK wherever you are, we miss you.
Photos credit: RC/Backgrid