Billy McFarlandthe convicted fraudster behind 2017's disastrous Fyre Festival has announced new dates for the long-awaited follow-up to the oft-derided Bahamian influencer event that landed him in prison for four years, owing victims more than $26 million in restitution.
Earlier this week, McFarland went to the Broadcast today to “announce” new dates for Fyre Fest II, which it now says will take place April 25-28 on “a private island off the Caribbean coast of Mexico.” By most accounts, however, this is the third or fourth version of a sequel that McFarland has relayed to his followers. McFarland has been promoting a follow-up to the disastrous 2017 Bahamas festival since going to prison in late 2018, changing the date for his redemption-style event several times while carefully removing or updating previous references to Fyre II each time he updated its own social media sites.
According to court documents, McFarland has been writing a plan for the event — originally called the PYRT festival — since he was incarcerated at Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Ohio on charges of fraud and lying to the FBI. McFarland immediately began performing the event on TikTok when he got out of prison in mid-2022 with a scavenger hunt. McFarland had fans rummaging through empty bottles as late as November of that year for free tickets to an event he eventually renamed Fyre Fest II in August 2023, where he claimed to have sold 100 tickets at $499 a pop and sold immediately. of them, which would have nearly $50,000 in revenue.
The date for that event was slated for late 2024, and at one point McFarland boasted that there were more people signing up for his event than buying Coachella tickets. Aside from the first 100 tickets reportedly sold to Fyre II, fans were only able to “sign up” for tickets for the sequel by clicking on a form-like website where they are encouraged to apply for a chance to purchase Fyre Festival tickets . II, with prices ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million. At this point, fans cannot purchase tickets to the event — they can only apply to attend.
McFarland explained the venture to both of them Wall Street Journal and NBC News, saying it hopes to draw about 3,000 people for the event and also promises “an incredible production company that handles everything from soup to nuts” for the festival.
“We have an opportunity to embrace this storm and really steer our ship through all the chaos that's been going on, and if it's done well, I think Fyre has an opportunity to become that annual festival that really takes the festival industry by storm.” , McFarland said. NBC.
McFarland has not avoided legal trouble since leaving prison. Last year he was served with a civil summons alleging he ripped off an investor who gave him $740,000 for his new venture. 54 year old lawyer Jonathan Taylor of New York — who met McFarland while both were serving prison terms in Elkton — said Taylor cut a deal with McFarland and his business partner, Michael Falb (also named as the defendant), in which he was allegedly offered a one-third equity in the business, PYRT Technologies, in exchange for a $740,000 investment. Taylor alleges that McFarland and Falb then reneged on the deal by refusing to grant him the promised equity or return the money despite his demands that they do so. A judge later ruled that Taylor had to refile the lawsuit to move the case forward.
McFarland has managed to stay busy with other ventures since leaving prison. In May, McFarland won a highly publicized martial arts match against a social media influencer, defeating the heavily favored crypto YouTuber Justin “Jchains” Custardo via TKO during the main event of Karate Combat's Influencer Fight Club Series at the Consensus Convention in Austin, Texas.
McFarland also started the marketing agency PYRT and was heavily involved in promoting the song “ONBOA47RD,” a pro-Donald Trump rap song by Fivio Foreign and Kodak Black.
