ADVERTISEMENTBilly McFarland, the scam artist and convicted fellon who gained notoriety for the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival, has officially sold the rights to the event’s brand on eBay for $245,300 (approx. €211,135).
The auction, which reportedly drew a 175 bids, included intellectual property, trademarks, and social media accounts tied to the Fyre name.
The identity of the buyer remains unknown.
In a livestream during the eBay auction, McFarland appeared disappointed with the result, commenting: “Damn. This sucks, it’s so low.”
According to Rolling Stone, the sale will barely make a dent in his outstanding $26 million (approx. €22.3m) restitution order tied to his criminal conviction.
Nonetheless, the disgraced founder took to social media after the sale, saying: “Fyre Festival is just one chapter of my story, and I’m excited to move onto my next one.”
He continued: “The auction became the most-watched non-charity listing on eBay during its run, proving once again that attention is currency, and views are the root of attention. That belief is at the core of what I’m building next.”
McFarland then shared that he’s working on a “tech platform designed to capture and power the value behind every view online.”
Cue: death by a thousand eyerolls.
McFarland was given a six-year prison sentence in 2018 for wire fraud related to the original Fyre Festival. He was released early in 2022 and attempted to relaunch the event multiple times – without success.
What happened at Fyre Festival?
McFarland founded Fyre Festival with rapper Ja Rule. As part of their advertising scheme for the supposed luxury music festival, they employed influencers including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski to post on Instagram about the festival.
The influencers didn’t clearly disclose that it was a paid advert.
McFarland also falsely claimed that the festival’s location was on Pablo Escobar’s private island.
In reality, it was located on a beach in the Bahamas, and when the glamorous (and wannabe glamorous) flocked to McFarland’s promised luxury event in 2017, all was not as it seemed.
When the punters arrived, they were confronted with unfinished stages, tents instead of fancy accommodation, and a notoriously rubbish welcome meal of some pre-sliced cheese and a depressing-looking salad on dry bread.
As for the star-studded line-up of acts including Pusha T, Tyger, Blink-182, Disclosure, Migos, and Skepta… They all pulled out.
To make matters worse, the 500+ guests were stranded on the island, as flights were cancelled by the Bahamian government.
The ordeal was captured in the Netflix documentary FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, as well as the Hulu doc Fyre Fraud.
McFarland and Ja Rule were hit with multiple lawsuits for fraud and other charges seeking damages.
McFarland was investigated by the FBI for mail fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, he was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to hand over $26 million.
Since his release from prison, McFarland reportedly arranged meetings with rappers for Donald Trump’s most recent election campaign – in a bid to reach and appeal to more Black voters.
And because once a scammer, always a hardened scammer, McFarland has tried to revive the festival – adventurously named Fyre Fest II.
It was announced that the second edition of the festival would be taking place on a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico. However, it was soon revealed that the permit McFarland had obtained only allowed for a 12-hour listening party that only could have fewer than 300 people.
McFarland set the tickets for between $1,400 (€1,200) and $25,000 (€21,500) – with “premium packages” priced as high as $1.1 million (€947,000).
As you can guess, the Fyre Fest II never took place.
Now that the rights to the Fyre brand have been sold, anyone else fearing the outcome of McFarland’s new tech platform “designed to capture and power the value behind every view online”?
