For everyone who hates the "plug-and-play" trips to Burning Man set up for rich kids, this story is the schadenfreude of the year. It turns out that the logistics of throwing giant festivals in remote locations are difficult! Who would have guessed?<p>I look forward to the deeper investigative reporting on precisely how that mess worked out as badly as it did, but the combination of promise-vs-reality mismatch and the rough PR afterwards suggests incompetence on all levels.
From Bahamian paper, <a href="http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/apr/28/tribune-comment-fyre-festival-organisers-showed-di/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/apr/28/tribune-comment-f...</a><p><i>"... those who met with the organisers of the Fyre Festival shared that the timeframe was far too short for such an ambitious event ... organisers were again advised to reschedule the event to avoid competing with the famous 60 and more-year-old George Town regatta ... this Regatta is the highlight of the George Town social calendar. All hotel rooms, transportation, taxis and majority of the rental houses are booked years in advance for this week. Clearly, this would pose a logistical nightmare and preclude any additional tourists or locals from attending such an event as Fyre Festival."</i>
The Reddit dedicated to this showed there was an article in the huffpo and a Twitter account (something like @fyrefraud) that have been screaming for months that this festival was an obvious scam. If you know what to look for, a lot of outcomes are not some giant mystery. In isolation, human behavior is actually quite predictable; only in the aggregate does it get difficult to predict.<p>Edit: I went through my browser history and the Twitter handle is correct.the article was actually on BuzzFeed but it's been scrubbed since last night. The author's name is Madeline Scott and the title started with "is fyre festival the next big music event or..." Maybe there's a cahe of the article somewhere?
Each year there is guaranteed to be a 'winter wonderland' event with Santa, the Elves and everything else Christmas, only for it to go the way of the Fyre Festival and become newsworthy. Typical headlines will involve the elves sat around smoking with no snow anywhere on site and the general appearance of the 'wonderland' being more like a refugee camp.<p>Some recent years, found with zero Google-fu:<p>2013:<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10518992/Winter-Wonderland-in-Milton-Keynes-cancelled-after-complaints-over-ice-rink-with-no-ice.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10518992/Winter-Wonde...</a><p>'Poundland Santa' - funny!!!<p>2014:<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11248745/Laurence-Llewelyn-Bowens-winter-wonderland-told-to-shut.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11248745/Laure...</a><p>'a visit to Father Christmas will never be the same again...'<p>2008:<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090931/Furious-parents-attack-Santa-elves-tempers-fray-Winter-blunderland-theme-park.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090931/Furious-pare...</a><p>'Challenging: The 'Nativity scene' could only be reached across a muddy field'<p>2016:<p><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bad-santa-gets-sack-smoking-9304456" rel="nofollow">http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bad-santa-gets-sack-smo...</a><p>'One mum who visited the Christmas gala event in Cumbria, which cost £25 for a family of four, said her kids had more fun walking home'<p>Clearly this is a list that gets added to every year and I am wondering whether this would make an interesting day out, to go to a real life version of Banksy's take on a theme park.<p>The failed festival is in the same league however I think there is added reason for failure. Back in the day of illegal raves there was no option of failure because people would bring their own entertainment (yes, probably drugs) and be prepared for no facilities except for a sound system or two. Events were participatory, people got on with it and didn't wait around expecting to be entertained.
This festival has ignited a Twitter war between the haves and the have nots. One particularly tone deaf tweet (if you read her entire feed over the last 24 hours, you will understand why poor/middle class people dislike most outrageously rich people and vice versa):<p><a href="https://twitter.com/storeyfrizzell/status/858091444275302400" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/storeyfrizzell/status/858091444275302400</a>
If you like reading about festival fails, on a smaller, less-grand, scale there's 'pizza-and-music' festival <i>MySliceFest</i> of last year - <a href="http://www.methodsunsound.com/myslicefest-london-review/" rel="nofollow">http://www.methodsunsound.com/myslicefest-london-review/</a>
The number one issue with this festival for those of us in the Caribbean (and those of us who are also involved in the entertainment industry) is that this casts a very negative image on festivals here in general.<p>This is in spite of the fact that throughout the region, much larger and more elaborate events occur frequently, e.g. carnival in Trinidad (and everywhere else), St. Lucia Jazz Fest, Reggae Sumfest, SXM, countless large sporting events like the ICC Cricket World Cup, etc.<p>I'm performing at a new one called Tmrw.Tday in Negril in two weeks - luckily the Fyre thing happened too late to affect ticket sales for that one I think.
As a followup, the New York Post reports that the Fyre company is facing an employee revolt. If the paychecks aren't delivered today, a mass exodus is expected.[1] The company may not make it to Monday.<p>[1] <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/05/04/fyre-festival-organizer-is-facing-an-employee-revolt/" rel="nofollow">http://nypost.com/2017/05/04/fyre-festival-organizer-is-faci...</a>
It happens all the time even in small scale. One of the food fests for example, when I got there, there were foods that had nothing to do with the theme and they started mark up prices on the spot because there wasn't enough. Never mind I had to pay to get in on the first place and the food was horrible.
This sounds like a repeat of the Dashcon fiasco. Complete with overpromised celebrities who never show up, captive audience, and underdelivered entertainment venues.
Why do i have to read about some stupid rich shit failed luxury music festival on reddit, hackernews, at some random website and a german newspaper?<p>who cares?<p>:(<p>Rich people got disappointed, okay.