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Fyre Festival rights "sold" on eBay [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2025-07-16
Fyre Festival, fully-formed in the mind of the bro but disastrously organized and lately rebooted to even less success, is now someone else's problem. The founder sold the "rights" to it on eBay; a suspicious transaction at a preferred venue. He got $245k for his horse.
"Since 2017, FYRE has dominated headlines, documentaries, and conversations as one of the world's most talked-about music festivals," McFarland wrote, failing to mention that the festival garnered so much attention due to its colossal failure. "There is a clear path for operators and entrepreneurs with strong domain expertise to build FYRE into a global force in entertainment, media, fashion, CPG, and more."
Pitched as a luxury music festival on a private island for the richest and coolest kids, the event devolved into chaos at literary scale, leaving attendees stranded, hungry and disillusioned. As reported by the BBC, the festival was advertised by famous faces including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin, and tickets cost up to $100,000. Guests arrived to rain-soaked mattresses, cheese slices on bread, and their luggage piled in a field like a colliery slag heap.
Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud related to the festival. He was released early in 2022, still owes $26 million in restitution, and came back for more earlier this year. Good luck getting your hands on any of that $245k, assuming a transaction even completes.
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[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/07/16/fyre-festival-rights-sold-on-ebay.html
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