Top 5 Craziest Moments from the Fyre Festival Documentary

If you’re in the same boat as me, you didn’t hear about the Fyre Festival until the drama was imploding in everyone’s face and Twitter went into a frenzy with live updates. And even then, it held a sort of unbelievability factor, like, “is this really happening?” Did these people really get scammed out of millions of dollars for a first-time music festival that never happened? Yes. Yes they did. And like the name, everything did indeed go up in smoke, flames and fyre (fire). Netflix released a documentary on Jan. 18, 2019 that revisited the festival that took place April 27, 2017. It gives a more in-depth look at the masterminds behind the whole thing, entrepreneur Billy McFarland and famous rapper Ja Rule, and how the festival did (or didn’t) come together. Here are some of the top five craziest moments.  

1. Evian Water

​Coming in hot at number one. That moment. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, that the mess of the hoops the team behind the festival had to go through to save the festival wasn’t enough, we see the lengths an individual will go to for some water. Evian water to be exact. I won’t go too much into detail, just know event producer, Andy King, might have secured employee of the year and Evian water might be looking at some unpaid promotion and advertisement.

2. Fool Me One Time…

By the end of the documentary, I was convinced Billy McFarland is a madman. Despite everyone telling him that the festival needed to be shut down, that it wasn’t safe, sanitary or advisable to bring thousands of people to the island, he continued to push on. He scammed investors and his team. While watching this you’re probably thinking, “oh he learned his lesson. He couldn’t possibly… oh no…. He didn’t.” Yes. He did. As if one scam wasn’t enough, the Fyre Festival mastermind decided that prison wasn’t a factor in any of his criminal doings. He disgustingly continued to swindle individuals he had already scammed through Fyre Festival by attempting to sell them nonexistent tickets to high-profile events below the market value. While Ja Rule claims it wasn’t fraud, just false advertisement, McFarland quickly learned that fraud is a real, justifiable crime and is spending six years in prison.

3. The Infamous Sandwich 

The buses, the rickety airplanes, the soaked FEMA tents and mattresses, the lack of promised luxurious housing and the lack of medical aids—it was the sandwiches that got everyone. Including me. If you didn’t know anything about this catastrophe of an event, you might’ve at least seen a picture of a piece of untoasted bread, sad cheese, one tomato and wilted lettuce going around. It was insane. It was like seeing another adaptaion of Lord of the Flies. Rich kids out in the Bahamas who had spent up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for jail food. Is it bad if I laughed?

4. “If you paid thousands of dollars to go on a trip to see Blink 182, that’s on you. That is Darwinism at its finest.”—Comedian, Ron Fuches

I think what really sold me on the disposition that I didn’t feel bad for anyone in this documentary, other than the unpaid Bahamians and the incredible woman who worked around the clock to cater the festival without getting paid in the end, is that these people were so easy to swindle. It brings attention to this culture today of wanting to be seen, of wanting to appear more than what you really are, of looking up to these social media influencers who have no bearing on your life. This culture where you shell out millions of dollars for clout with no questions. But it was also the fact that the team behind this saw every single thing they planned turn awry, knew that every single promise was empty, that they had no money to deliver the jet skis, and private planes, and luxury cabanas that were promised—even decent plumbing—and still went ahead with the event.

5. Hasta Lavista!

But if that wasn’t enough, McFarland and other event coordinators hightailed it out of the very-not-private island that was promised while the festival-goers were stranded in airports and on the island with no way out, no food or water and left the Bahamians who worked so hard to try to make the experience doable in such a short amount of given time, unpaid. It was hard to watch the Bahamian restaurant owner, Maryann Rolle, who went through $50,000 of her sayings to pay the restaurant staff of the festival, break down in tears to say that it was a moment she chooses to put to the back of her mind. Great news is that a GoFundMe campaign was created for Rolle and has gained up to $135,000. 

If you haven’t gotten the chance, go watch the unfolding of the Greatest Party That Never Happened with a cheese sandwhich and some Evian water.   

• fyre festival
• Netflix