Tickets for Fyre Fest were previously sold with prices ranging from $1,400 for the “Ignite” general access to $1.1 million for the “Prometheus” premium experience. According to the festival’s terms of service, all ticket sales are final, and no refunds will be offered.
My bolding for the final clause.
Of course, whether that stands up in court, or if McFarlane or any of his co-conspirators will be able to be found in order to be served… well, food for much speculation. One thing that interests me, is as has been pointed out by many a poster so far, is that any mulligans are well and truly burned. The fact that they claimed the 1800 hundred person live event and that they had full permission, but documented (self-own!) only the permits for 250 people for recorded music… that’s gonna cost them. No one is going to buy that this was just incompetence.
Poor Billy. He just keeps getting lied to and ripped off - now by the government.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” the statement said. “When a government takes your money, issues permits, promotes the event, and then pretends it’s never heard of you, that’s not just dishonest — it’s theft. Due to this, we have decided to move FYRE Festival 2 elsewhere.”
As to refunds:
Interestingly, per the same article:
Soldout.com, which had partnered with ticket sales, told NBC News that it stands “firmly behind our 100% money-back guarantee. Given the recent changes to the date and venue of Fyre Festival 2, all customers who purchased tickets directly through our platform are eligible for a full refund.”
Assuming soldout.com is legit it sounds like people might actually be able to get their money back. Not that they’d want to - but if they did.
Didn’t see the Netflix show and I suppose even he could be editing the article yet Wiki says:
In March 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in federal court in Manhattan and admitted to using fake documents to attract investors to put more than $26 million into his company. He agreed to forfeit $26 million.
( bolding mine )
That was nice and generous of him.
I don’t understand how that works, unless “foreited” means he returned the investors money. Were those funds invested in even something safe like treasury bonds and collecting interest (for nigh on 18 months)?
If he was a real promoter/manager and wanted to put on a show, he’d have had to put up a substantial bond to stage some show in a minor league hockey venue with a few second-tier bands who were willing to drive their own vans and do the stage set up themselves.
In 1982 and 1983, Steve Wozniak “the other guy” who co-founded Apple Computers, put on two “Us Festivals” with 20 bands over 3 days in the first one, and close to 30 less than a year later. He was smart enough to hire Bill Graham as his promoter. Lost $12 million on each and apparently didn’t care. (An anecdote was Van Halen’s contract stipulated they’d be the highest paid act and when David Bowie was signed for $1 million, Van Halen got a million and one dollar).
I thought “Scam Artists” actually got away (mostly). This guy is a total loser, and if he has some charisma or sales knowledge, he should be selling cars or real estate.
Oh, I remember the US Festivals. They were covered heavily on the fledgling MTV, and also on the fledgling CNN because of all the problems with infrastructure and the like.
“Bloom County” had a series of strips where the characters hosted their own Us Festival, “Because all of the money is going to us.” I remember that Opus, the penguin, played a sousaphone.
I’m hearing that this year’s Coachella festival had more problems than usual, with one bright spot, and that was Bernie Sanders making a surprise appearance.
You know the desert scene in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”? MAD’s send-up on it had someone pointing out, “No food, no water, no shelter, no toilet facilities - what were they thinking?”
Sounds like the ticket vendor was smart enough to escrow a lot of the funds. But good bet not all. So if you were a ticket buyer, better ask for your refund ASAP. They sure as hell would not be refunding money out of their own pocket after having passed all the ticket sales money on to the known to be scammy promoters.
Heck, this whole con may be folding on that basis. i.e. perhaps the promotors did not have other sources of funds sufficient to build their Potemkin village beleivable enough fast enough to attract the big bux. So when they got starved for seed money early, the whole thing folded like a four-flush.