Billy McFarland, disgraced fraudster/business mogul, seems to have gained momentum once again for Fyre Festival 2, the sequel to his widely publicized blunder of a musical festival in 2017. On Tuesday (August 22), he announced during an interview with TMZ that the first pre-sale for the fest, currently without a date, location, or a lineup, sold out of tickets at lightning speed.
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“We announced our first pre-sale on Sunday. They sold out very, very quickly,” McFarland told TMZ News hosts. “And I think this kind of all comes back to, since 2016, Fyre has had 32 billion impressions across social media, which makes us the most talked about festival in the world. We saw that in the past 36 hours convert into sales.”
Put together by McFarland and iconic emcee Ja Rule, the first rendition of Fyre Festival was a complete disaster. Advertised as a tropical beach extravaganza, including performances from top-tier mainstream acts like Blink-182, Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music collective, Major Lazer, Migos, and more, the fest turned out to be a sham, leaving excited attendees instead stuck in the Bahamian island of Exumas with shoddy tents to sleep in, zero musical performances, and horrible food options.
Along with McFarland being sent to prison for six years in the fest’s aftermath, being charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and making false statements to federal law enforcement, Netflix and Hulu both released documentaries about the fiasco in 2019, turning Fyre into a laughing stock.
Now, though, after serving four years of his six-year prison sentence, McFarland and Fyre are back for redemption.
[RELATED: Fyre Fest Founder Billy McFarland Announces His Return to the Bahamas With New Venture]
“I kind of feel like I’m the pilot of a single-engine propeller plane right now, flying through the storm where everybody wants to watch,” he said. “And whether I crash or land, everybody wants to have a front-row seat as long as they’re safe. So, if I can kind of create that turbulence, then Fyre Festival 2 will become a great cultural moment.”
Later in his conversation with TMZ, McFarland elaborated on how he convinced promoters and organizers to rally behind Fyre Festival 2. He explained that his upcoming Broadway production, tentatively titled Fyre Fest 1.5, helped him regain a sense of legitimacy as it “turned the story of my life and Fyre Festival into a Broadway musical.”
“The courage of the company behind that (musical) sparked some of these festival operators to start responding to me, and I’m just so grateful they’re taking a chance,” he added. “It really, really is wild.”
If you dare to buy tickets for the upcoming Fyre Festival 2, pre-sale opportunities can be found on their website. Watch McFarland’s full discussion with TMZ below.
Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
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