FYRE Fest’s seven-figure sale has fallen through

Billy McFarland, owner of FYRE Fest and convicted fraudster, has shared that a seven-figure deal around the festival name has fallen through.

• READ MORE: The 10 most WTF moments from Netflix’s jaw-dropping Fyre Festival documentary

He shared the news on his Instagram page yesterday (July 7), telling followers that a hefty deal, which related to him selling the FYRE Fest IP, was no longer going ahead. He also added that the sale not going ahead means that others still have a chance to own a piece of the infamous brand.

“We had a seven-figure deal for the complete Fyre brand and IP package that fell through this morning,” McFarland explained in the update. “But now, the opportunity to own the Fyre brand is back on the table,” he added, going on to explain how followers could purchase or license the brand name for their own event or product.

The deal that has fallen though appears to be one that was announced back in April, when documentarian Shawn Rech revealed that he had acquired some of the FYRE Fest brand’s IP and was planning on launching a streaming service using the name.

Then, last month it was revealed that the FYRE Festival brand was looking to launch a hotel experience later this year, marketed as a Caribbean getaway in Honduras in September. While the plans for a streaming platform seem to be defunct, it seems that the hotel plans are still on the table.

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A post shared by Billy McFarland (@pyrtbilly)

The news that McFarland was looking into selling the FYRE Fest IP came shortly after he announced the unsurprising indefinite postponement of FYRE Festival 2 earlier this spring.

FYRE Fest 2 was originally set to run between May 30 and June 2 on an island in Mexico, before the tourism board and local officials claimed that no such festival exists.

The original FYRE Festival was first developed by McFarland eight years ago, and was planned to run over two weekends on a private beach in the Bahamas. That edition in 2017 was reportedly set to include performances from Blink-182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, Migos, Pusha T, Tyga and more.

It made headlines when it was revealed to be fraudulent, with punters arriving on the scene and facing inadequate conditions and a lack of food and water. The ordeal was then captured in the now-iconic Netflix documentary FYRE.

Back in February, 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 must have fewer than 300 people.

Before it was cancelled, the second edition of FYRE Fest saw tickets sell for between $1,400 and $25,000 (£1,081-£19,305), while premium packages were priced as high as $1.1million (£850,000) – despite the debacle around the first edition.

Ahead of the planned second instalment, a former Fyre Festival investor Andy King warned of “a lot of red flags” over the event’s planned reboot.

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