Music festivals are the trend of the century. From Burning Man to Coachella, and Lollapalooza to the Electric Daisy Carnival, festivals have become some of the most desired entertainment events of the year. Fyre Festival was meant to be one of these events, a weekend long music festival set to occur for two weekends, on April 28-30 and May 5-7 of 2017.
Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury music festival to take place on a private island in the Bahamas. The island promised was supposedly once owned by the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. The festival was highly promoted and a promotional video was shared by some of the titans of the celebrity and modeling world. Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, and even Kendall Jenner were among those who were featured in the promotional videos and photos. The event included music from Blink-182, Migos, Major Lazer, and many others. Tickets sold from $500 to $12,000.
The man behind this festival was Billy McFarland and his celebrity partner, Ja Rule. Billy McFarland said prior to the event “It’s going to be the biggest event in decades, I promise you,” in a short video introduction for the Netflix Documentary. He wasn’t fully wrong, it was the biggest event of the decade, but not in the way he hoped.
Many things were promised, including, a paradise island, geodesic domes, and meals from celebrity chefs. None of these promises were delivered upon. The island was not once owned by Pablo Escobar, the festival was oversold, villas that didn’t exist were sold, there were no toilets, mattresses were scattered everywhere, and soon, music groups pulled out.
Guest were placed in FEMA hurricane rescue tents, fed prepared cheese sandwiches in foam containers, and given no water. Flight situations were a disaster, causing delays and leaving most of the guests to become stranded. Some were hospitalized due to heat strokes and dehydration. The inability to leave made the disaster worse.
People at home were shocked and the event caused tons of controversy. How could an event heavily promoted by elite influencers fail this hard? Tweets, pictures, and videos surfaced. The cheese sandwich with a side of two pieces of lettuce went viral and memes were made. People at home were gleeful to watch this disaster go down. The topic was trending for weeks; this was the talk of the decade as Billy McFarland promised.
Many were left unpaid for their work, the island suffered, locals were suffering, and full responsibility was never taken. A Great Exuma restaurant owner, Maryann Rolle, was one of the restaurant owners that helped cater to the guests after the fiasco occured. She was never paid, used her own life savings to cater to those stranded, and got little to no thanks. Her testimony of the event was included on the Netflix documentary of the event. After the documentary, a gofundme was made to repay her for her services and is still ongoing.
In late 2018, Netflix announced they had the license for the Fyre Festival disaster documentary. Then, on January 14th, 2019, Hulu dropped their own Fyre Festival documentary, Fyre Fraud right before the highly anticipated Netflix Documentary.
Hulu’s Fyre Fraud documentary included an exclusive interview from Billy McFarland, that they paid six figures for. Exclusive videos from influencers that attended were also included. It recalled the moment and weeks prior to the festival and the event in the eyes of McFarland.
Netflix dropped their documentary, FYRE: the Greatest Party That Never Happened, on January 18th, 2019 and was co produced by Jerry Media, one of the biggest advertisers for the event. It included videos of Billy Mcfarland in a home video and testimonials from workers, locals, and management.
Some involved took responsibility for this disaster, though many didn’t. In a meeting with the event creators, the quote “We didn’t kill anybody, nobody got hurt, we made a mistake, we’ll get past it,” was thrown out there. Fyre Media hoped to recover and still launch their app that allows users to book celebrities for events. They compared themselves to Samsung and their exploding phones.
Another story developed after the festival that Netflix touched on. Employees were told they weren’t fired, but won’t be paid, leaving the only option for employees is to quit without pay and benefits.
The Netflix documentary told a better story, and the use of stories told in many different viewpoints offered the viewers the whole story told by everyone, those involved, locals, both paid and unpaid workers, influencers, those affected, friends of McFarland, and those who were trying to expose the festival from the start.
Hulu’s Fyre Fraud was told only by a few people. The documentary seemed like a standard and stale documentary, not fitting for this disaster. Netflix touched on more of the event than Hulu. More importantly, Netflix mentioned more of the aftermath and effects of the festival. Hulu’s Fyre Fraud was an okay watch but seemed rushed to release to compete with the Netflix Documentary. The competition alone was promotion enough for the Hulu documentary as no prior advertisement was presented.
FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, was truly a fitting and appropriate documentary for the event. It obtained better reviews than the Hulu documentary and was an interesting and great watch, though Fyre Fraud wasn’t terrible, Netflix has a bigger audience pool making the documentary more accessible and was truly an educational and interesting watch.