Back in 2017, Billy McFarland founded the Fyre Festival, which he claimed was meant to be an ultra-luxurious experience for elite music lovers.
via: EW
In a YouTube video posted Sunday, the convicted con artist officially announced Fyre Festival II, set to take place in the Caribbean sometime at the end of 2024. The specific dates, location, and festival lineup have not been revealed, but tickets are currently on sale starting at $499 and going up to $7,999, per the festival website.
“This is a big day,” McFarland says in the video, sporting Airpods and a plush white robe. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seventh-month stint in solitary confinement. I wrote out this 50-page plan of how it would take this overall interest and demand in Fyre and how it would take my ability bring people from around the world together to make the impossible happen.”
With the “best partners in the world” who have allowed “me to be me, while executing Fyre’s vision to the highest level,” McFarland says he “spoke to people as far away as the Middle East and South America” before deciding to once again bring the fest to the Caribbean. “In the meantime, we’ll be doing pop-ups and events across the world,” he adds. “Guys, this is your chance to get in. This is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s f—ing go.”
McFarland was released from federal prison in May 2022 after serving four years for defrauding investors and committing wire fraud in the ill-fated 2017 Fyre Festival he launched with rapper Ja Rule, which had been branded as a luxury musical extravaganza with gourmet dining that amounted to FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches. McFarland was subsequently transferred to a halfway house for community confinement and has since been on supervised release.
McFarland’s attorney Jason Russo told USA Today last year that his client was “putting together a team to organize and plan for projects that will allow him to generate the restitution for all those affected.” McFarland also apologized for his role during a Good Morning America appearance in November. “I let people down,” he said. “I let down employees. I let down their families. I let down investors. So I need to apologize. I’m wrong and it’s bad.”
Ja Rule, who has also apologized for the ill-fated fest and maintained that he too was “scammed” and “bamboozled,” told PEOPLE earlier this year that he would not be involved in any Fyre follow-up.
I too was hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked, lead astray!!!
— Ja Rule (@jarule) January 20, 2019
The disaster yielded two documentaries: Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Hulu’s Fyre Fraud. McFarland also said earlier this year that he’s developing a Broadway musical based on the fest.
