Tickets on sale for reboot of Fyre, the fraudulent luxury festival that ...

Fyre festival – the notorious music festival that turned out to be fraudulent – is getting a reboot, with tickets for a second attempt on sale now for $499 (£391).

The original event, which in a lawsuit was compared to “The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies”, was co-founded by Billy McFarland and the rapper Ja Rule and scheduled to take place in the Bahamas in 2017. It caused more than $26m in losses when it was cancelled over inadequate accommodation, food and water.

Ja Rule was cleared of wrongdoing over the Fyre festival disaster in 2019, a year after McFarland was jailed.

As documented in the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, festival organisers had used influencers including Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid to promote the luxury event. It was billed to take place on a remote private island that supposedly once belonged to the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar.

Guests were promised Instagram-worthy experiences, opulent accommodation and deluxe food, with tickets costing up to $12,780. But when they arrived, they found a rain-sodden campsite and emergency tents used for disaster relief. Their luggage was thrown into a dark car park and what was supposed to be gourmet food turned out to be cheese sandwiches in takeaway containers. There was also no running water or electricity, and artists including Blink-182 pulled out of performing.

Many businesses involved in the event were not paid, with one restaurant owner telling Netflix she lost thousands catering for the festival.

McFarland, the former founder of card-based membership club Magnises, was jailed in 2018 after pleading guilty to numerous fraud charges relating to the festival and his company NYC VIP Access, which sold fake tickets to events such as the Met Gala. Vanity Fair described him as “the poster boy for millennial scamming”.

A group of 277 attenders of Fyre festival were in 2021 awarded settlement payouts of $7,220 each.

But after being released last year, McFarland began planning a second incarnation of Fyre festival, which he said he devised during a stint in solitary confinement.

While he offered no details, he said he considered holding the festival in the Middle East or South America before ultimately deciding to bring the event “back to the Caribbean”, saying: “We are targeting Fyre festival 2 for the end of next year.”

In a video on TikTok and Instagram, the 32-year-old, wearing a white silk dressing gown, said: “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here and it really all started during the seven-month stint in solitary confinement.

“I wrote out this 50-page plan of how it would take this overall interest and demand in Fyre, and how it would take my ability to bring people from around the world together to make the impossible happen, how I would find the best partners in the world to allow me to be me while executing Fyre’s vision to the highest level.”

He added: “In the meantime, we’ll be doing pop-ups and events across the world. Guys, this is your chance to get in. This is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s f***ing go.”

The first 100 tickets are on sale now and cost $499 but prices are due to increase as more tickets sell. Tickets yet to be released cost between $799 and $7,999.

A disclaimer on the website says: “FFII date is subject to change. Pre-events and pop-ups to be announced, but Fyre will host a minimum of four events prior to FFII.”

McFarland previously announced plans to make a Broadway musical about the festival. In March this year, he also laid out his plans to repay the $26m he owed to investors for the first festival. He wrote on Twitter: “Here’s how I’m going to pay it back: I spend half my time filming TV shows. The other half, I focus on what I’m really, really good at. I’m the best at coming up with wild creative, getting talent together, and delivering the moment.” He included a number on which people could contact him with business opportunities.

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