After apologising to the Bahamas ahead of a recent treasure hunting scheme, Fyre Fest mastermind Billy McFarland has some seemingly inevitable news for us all: Fyre Festival 2 is in the works.
McFarland announced the sequel to the disaster of a music festival that kinda sorta took place in 2017 in a tweet yesterday — less in the form of a teaser and more in the form of an outright confirmation. In his tweet, McFarland stated that “Fyre Festival II is finally happening” while asking those who read his tweet to pitch why they should be invited. Details are scant past that, with a timeline for the festival and whether or not any musical guests are interested in attaching their names to it currently unclear.
McFarland did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Fyre Festival was a music festival set to take place in The Bahamas on April 28–30 and May 5–7, 2017. McFarland and rapper Ja Rule planned the festival, which was highly publicized by notable social media faces including Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski. The music festival, which allegedly booked 33 headliners from Blink 182 to Lil Yachty, was expected to be a weekend of glamor, partying, and exclusive concerts for any trust fund kid willing to cough up the dough.
When the weekend of the festival arrived, it descended into chaos. Guests were taken aback by the lack of food, housing, and security (in contrast to the luxury accommodations they were promised) and many flights out of the remote part of the island were cancelled leaving people stranded — and Billy McFarland was at the centre of all of the fallout. Afterward, McFarland was charged with wire fraud and faced 20 years in prison.
McFarland emerged from his publicity hidey-hole late last year to apologise to the Bahamas ahead of a treasure hunt referred to as PYRT, in which McFarland announced he would be hiding 99 bottles across the globe, and each bottle will have its own set of clues and treasure that hunters can find. In response, Aviation Chester Cooper, Bahamas Minister of Tourism, said that the country “will not endorse or approve any event in The Bahamas associated with [McFarland]” and that “he is considered to be a fugitive.”
I guess The Bahamas is out, then?