Original Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland says a 2nd festival is 'finally happening' despite his disastrous 1st attempt

• On Sunday, Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland announced that another festival is in the works.

• "Fyre Festival II is finally happening. Tell me why you should be invited," McFarland tweeted.

• McFarland pleaded guilty in March 2018 to wire-fraud charges in relation to Fyre Festival.

On Sunday, Billy McFarland took to Twitter to announce that another Fyre Festival is in the works. In 2017, McFarland founded the first Fyre Festival which became a monumental failure that inspired two documentaries and led to McFarland pleading guilty to wire-fraud charges in relation to the event.

"Fyre Festival II is finally happening," McFarland tweeted. "Tell me why you should be invited." The tweet has less than a thousand likes as of Monday.

This isn't the first time McFarland has toyed with the idea of hosting another festival. In November 2022, McFarland announced his next project, PYRT (pronounced "pirate"). On an episode of the "Full Send" podcast hosted by the Nelk Boys, McFarland said that PYRT is going to be a hotel in the Bahamas for artists and creatives to let loose.

"PYRT is all about taking people to places that they think are impossible," McFarland said. "So I have to do a PYRT fest, right? It can't be tomorrow, it can't be in four months, but there's going to be PYRT fest."

Back in 2017, McFarland sold over 5,000 tickets to what he claimed would be a two-weekend luxury music festival on a private beach on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas. McFarland, along with rapper and co-founder Ja Rule, recruited influencers like Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, and Hailey Bieber to promote the event. (Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, said he was scammed himself and was later dismissed from a $100-million class action lawsuit brought by attendees, according to The Guardian.)

According to the BBC, tickets for the festival were on sale for up to $75,000, which were said to include luxury accommodations like eco-friendly "domes and villas."

The reality proved disastrous. The failed music festival left hundreds of attendees stranded at the venue in the Bahamas without adequate food, water, shelter, or even the musical acts that had been promised as big names like Blink-182, Pusha T, and Lil Yachty had backed out days prior to the event's start.

Photos and videos of the infamous event made the rounds on social media throughout the weekend. Stranded attendees posted photos of the disappointing meals, accommodations, and transportation lines.

As detailed in Netflix's 2019 documentary, "Fyre," Bahamian locals that constructed the festival and helped cater the food said they were never compensated for their work. After the documentary was released, GoFundMe pages raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the caterers and day laborers.

In March 2022, McFarland was released from prison early after receiving a six-year sentence in 2018 for wire fraud related to the Fyre Festival. Part of his plea deal is that he can't serve as a director of a public company ever again and his earnings will be garnished towards paying back over $25 million to fraud victims.

Read the original article on Insider