Revisiting The Infamous Fyre Festival

Bella Breakdown

In 2017, entrepreneur Billy McFarland attempted to create the world’s most exclusive music festival. Filled with supermodels, music, and luxury accommodations set in the Bahamas, Fyre would be the first of its kind to blend the music festival experience with the glamour of Hollywood. That is, until it completely fell apart.

With the release of Netflix’s documentary, “FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened”, eyes are turning back to this spectacular failure, which robbed thousands of people of hundreds of dollars. McFarland, the CEO and founder of Fyre Festival, is now serving six years in prison for fraud, part of which involved wiring money to a fake credit card company called Magnises.

McFarland wasn’t alone though. The director of marketing for the event, Grant Margolin, got off easy, and agreed to a settlement with the SEC without ever actually admitting guilt. “Margolin and Simon created certain documents at McFarland’s behest that inflated operational and financial metrics of Fyre Media and Fyre Festival, without inquiring into the accuracy of information … or exercising the care and skill that a reasonable person of ordinary prudence and intelligence would be expected to exercise under the circumstances,” the SEC wrote.

And many, many people did fall for the false hype. Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Blink 182 and Major Lazer were among the models and artists expected to attend the event. “I feel so sorry and badly because this is something I can’t stand by, although of course if I would have known about the outcome, you would have all known too,” Bella Hadid said.

Tune into Netflix to learn all about this scandal of the century. There is also a Fyre festival documentary on Hulu “Fyre Fraud” that covers the financial aspects of everything building up to Fyre festival.