"Proceed with caution": Former Fyre Festival investor shares fears ahead of reboot edition

Andy King, an investor who lost $1 million after the original Fyre Festival ended in disaster in 2017, has told the BBC that he sees “red flags” for the festival's reboot edition.

His comments come after Billy McFarland, the convicted felon responsible for the 2017 event, announced on NBC News that Fyre II is set to go ahead from April 25 - 28, 2025, on a private island off the coast of Mexico.

Plans for Fyre II were initially announced last year, with tickets going on sale for an early bird price of $449, and higher-tier tickets for $7,999. The luxury package came in at a whopping $1.1 million, which supposedly includes luxury yachts, scuba diving, and island hopping.

The first drop of 100 presale tickets sold out within a day, with no line-up or destination revealed.

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Mr King has warned that anyone going, or interested in going, should “proceed with caution”. He said that while McFarland wants to “flip the script”, he's unsure the recently released fraudster is “going about it in the right way".

“He’s shooting from the hip again,” the self-proclaimed 'Fyre Festival survivor' told the BBC. "I'm just seeing a lot of red flags and a lot of red lights. And I feel bad, it saddens me.”

For King, the red flags first appeared when he was contacted by Farland several months ago to discuss plans for Fyre II and meet investors in the resurrected venture, he said.

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"We were going to rent one of the biggest estates in the Hamptons and have a big, swanky party," King explained. "We ended up having 30 people at a pizza place along the Montauk highway."

He added that Fyre Festival has potential to be a success, but, if McFarland is "running the show again", it "won't work".

McFarland was released from prison early in 2022 after serving four years in jail for wire fraud and a ticket-selling scam.

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Co-founded with rapper Ja Rule, the original edition of Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury event in the Bahamas with villas, gourmet food, and performances from Blink-182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, Migos, and more. Celebrities Emily Ratajkowski and Kendall Jenner were set to make appearances.

Instead, festivalgoers who spent up to $100,000 for tickets turned up to find rain-soaked mattresses on the floor of disaster relief tents, cheese sandwiches in takeaway boxes, and their luggage chucked into a car park. All talent was cancelled.

The debacle was documented in a Netflix documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, in which King appeared desperate to try and turn things around.

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At one point in the film, he claims that McFarland suggested he offered sexual favours to border security in exchange for bottled water.

The swindled investor told the BBC that his reputation has been badly damaged since the documentary's release, but that he has stayed in contact with McFarland and would still like to talk with him about the upcoming event.

He says he wants to send a warning to his ex-business partner that “the Fyre brand is so well known around the world that there is going to be a lot of people that will be curious. And they're all watching."

McFarland, now 32, told NBC that he has spent a year planning Fyre II: “We have the chance to embrace this storm and really steer our ship into all the chaos that has happened, and if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry."

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He expects 3,000 visitors to attend the festival, and claims to have hired a production company to “handle the stages and the bathrooms and all the stuff that I clearly don’t know how to do". Although, when asked, he would not reveal the name of the production company, nor the name of the host island.

McFarland has revealed that the event will not include “just music", and there are talks of hosting "live fights at Fyre Festival II".

Beneath McFarland’s latest post on Instagram, in which he announces the festival's scheduled dates, one commenter jokes: “Can’t make it. I’ll catch it on Netflix though. No spoilers please!”

[Via BBC]

Meena Sears is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Instagram