Fyre Festival

[Davey Boy 2.0]

So, this is Fyre Festival. https://www.fyrefestival.com/

I'll give you a minute to drink all that douchewater in.

An "exclusive," "luxury" music festival with tickets starting at $450 for out-by-nightfall day passes and +$12,000 deluxe packages.

Held in Exumas cay in the Bahamas, That 12k gets you a "rustic," furnished glamping tent with 2 king-sized beds, plus 4 festival passes.  Of course, upgrades were available, including catering, special events, and VIP passes. (No, that base 12k doesn't get you VIP access.)  

Participating bands included Blink 182, Tyga and Migos. Planned activities included yoga, massages, and rentable yachts (starting at $60k).

This festival was apparently advertised extensively on Instagram, playing up the glamour and "lifestyle"angle of the event.

It was going to be held on a private island "once owned by Pablo Escobar." it would feature supermodels hanging out to chat with. Over $100,000 in "treasure" would be hidden around the island for a fun, rick-kid treasure hunt. Kendall Jenner was promoting it. You get the idea. Exclusivity, conspicuous consumption, & many, MANY promises of excellent selfies for your already-insufferable Instagram.

But even before launch, rumors began circulating Fyre Festival was NOT what it seemed, despite celeb organizer's Ja Rule's excited tweets.

Private island? No, it was going to be held on or near a Sandals, on a large island. (A chain resort for us scum, in other words.)

So popular tickets were selling out? Noooo, they would announce being sold out, then mysteriously reappear for sale repeatedly.

Cool acts on the main stage? No, the line-up was constantly shifting; even now, on festival day, the site features TBD performing slots.

And rumors infrastructure labor was going unpaid, with the festival reportedly selling so few tickets that loans were necessary for set-up.

Whistle-blowing began in March, but the festival moved ahead regardless,and attendees began to arrive the 27th.

The "luxury" glamping tents are leftover disaster relief tents from USAid.

The "catering" (which cost extra) was a slice of untoasted bread, two slices prepackaged cheese, and a side salad.

The infrastructure was nonexistent, and the festival staff either a skeleton crew or MIA.

And festival-goers are reporting feral dogs, cancelled flights, and other attendees starting fights with locals.

It's so bad, SO FUCKIN' BAD, that the US Embassy in The Bahamas is now intervening in an attempt to get people home immediately.

All flights into the cay have been cancelled by Bahamian authorities. Attendee @WNFIV's timeline is chronicling this disaster in real time.

TL;DR: Some Instagram kids just paid between $450 & +$12k... to be stranded... in a tropical tent city. Cuz some models told them to.

These are the secure lockers at Fyre Fest. They forgot to tell us we needed locks.

 

[bouche]

I thought that was some satire that you dug up.  wow. 

[Booche]

https://medium.com/slackjaw/i-attended-your-exclusive-caribbean-music-festival-and-now-i-want-my-money-back-86a1a571c0fd

[bouche]

Quote

Here’s the thing: I might have suffered all this if not for the final nail in the festival coffin: I didn’t get laid. Not even once. I don’t spend $1000s to travel to the Caribbean to not get laid. I can travel to east London to do that — and all for the cost of a single journey on my Oyster card. False advertising, that’s what it is.

 

[edger]

I watched the netflix documentary called "Fyre" on this whole debacle. Just mind-blowing...and a sad window into our world of "influencers" and the industry feeding insatiable longing for  exclusivity.  Apparently there are actually two documentaries on this shitshow:

https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-or-hulu-which-fyre-festival-documentary-you-should-watch/

While they give some passing nods to the Bahamian workers who slaved for months and went unpaid, I don't think they begin to do justice to the social and ecological exploitation and implications of this entire mess, or that likely would have gone entirely ignored if this had even remotely panned out as planned for those who were in attendance.  While I've thought about it many times before, it really made me think again about  my own festival-going patterns of consumption...so much to be grateful for, and also so much more that we need to do better on in terms of raising levels of consciousness about the footprint of our mystical musical ventures.

[DevO]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Netflix doc.

Some good news: the Bahamian caterer lady who is featured in the doc has crowd funded over $240K.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4883632/fyre-fest-maryann-rolle-gofundme/

 

[phorbesie]

Ha...as i watched her in the doc i said exactly that...'this lady is gonna make a fortune on gofundme'

found the Netflix doc very entertaining and ridiculous as well. Haven't watched the other one yet.

[2ndtube]

netflix doc was definitely more eye catching.

the hulu doc did a better job explaining the insanity that is social media influencers.

[Booche]

As entertaining as this was, it was an exercise in anxiety for me.

(kinda wailed and cant recall how to do the spoiler strikethrough)

 

SPOILER ALERT:

 

How the fuck can one not care? And how the fuck would one be willing to suckcock to keep things afloat even though the ship had already drowned?

 

[bouche]

Wow. I finally watched the Netflix doc.  I'm so interested in the making of this.  There is so much footage that probably wasn't easy to get, especially near the end where Billy is actively scamming people while on bail.  Impressive doc production.  While having no narrator, the story was told entirely through footage and I wonder if there was anyway to make any of this look good with creative editing.  Some of the participants had a great spirit about the failure and their involvement, while being open to having responsibility but also humbly respecting the fact that they believed in what they were doing.

I just don't understand how anyone would buy into this guy. He has one of them contrived, creepy, untrustworthy, even forced perma-grins as seen on the face of such people such as

Pharma bro Shkerli

 

or even a president

 

VIP appears to be the most expensive 3 letters these days.  He took advantage of that in such a selfish manner.