Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

[EPISODE 138] Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party That Never Happened



Kyle Risi: [00:00:00] Adam, a single cheese sandwich led the charge in the complete annihilation of an entire multimillion dollar brand.

Adam Cox: Another episode where things go wrong,

Kyle Risi: Fyre Festival was this luxury musical festival an island once owned by Pablo Escobar. So it's perfect.

Adam Cox: It sounds great,

Kyle Risi: Eh, wrong.

there's no infrastructure there at all. There's no Water, electricity, not even plumbing. That evening the island is hit with a massive threshold. Downpour.

No, the tents literally collapse inwards.

As they're driving, one of the girls sees all the disaster relief tents in the distance. And for a serious moment she thinks that she is driving past poverty to get to the luxury.

meanwhile, the bus driver, he knows exactly where they're going.

Like, sweetie, you have no idea.

One guy says, it was literally like the Hunger Games.

And then just one kid with a few hundred followers posts a picture of a cheese sandwich and pretty much [00:01:00] destroy the entire brand.

Adam Cox: Wow.

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground. At any social gathering,

Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

Kyle Risi: I am Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, who's just the barman this week. Humble work. Yeah, I make my own alcohol, my own moonshine.

Kyle Risi: You fermenting your own moonshine. What's the main ingredients?

Is it grain base? [00:02:00] Is is it corn base?

Adam Cox: I don't read the labels.

Kyle Risi: This is random. It's too random.

Guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us in the absolute best way to support the show and enjoy exclusive perks is of course as always to join us over at Patreon because signing up for free will get you access to next week's episode an entire seven days before anyone else.

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Kyle Risi: Oh, just loop back to the first one, then the Beanie Baby bubble.

Adam Cox: There's about 20. Go enjoy yourself.

Kyle Risi: We're gonna need to add some more into that archive anyway. We've got too many on the main feed. And as a special thank you, all of our Certified Freak team members now receive an exclusive compendium key chain. All you gotta do is just DM us with your address and we'll send one straight to your door so we can always be dangling near your.

[00:03:00] Crutch. Why'd you whisper it?

Adam Cox: Just think of other ways you can say crutch.

Kyle Risi: Ituc of last week. It was creepy this week.

Adam Cox: Creepy. I thought it was a little central.

Kyle Risi: And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review or a rating. If you're on Spotify, your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

So Adam, today on the Compendium, we're diving into an assembly of hype lies and catastrophic failure.

Adam Cox: Okay. Sounds like another episode where things go wrong,

Kyle Risi: like the poop cruise episode.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: It's not too dissimilar from the poop cruise episode. Actually,

Adam Cox: Well, hopefully it's a kind of a fun catastrophe rather than a serious one.

Kyle Risi: There's always gonna be some casualties, but we can very much laugh at this one Adam, you must remember that very brief deranged moments in history where a single cheese sandwich led the charge in the complete annihilation of an entire multimillion dollar brand.

Adam Cox: Well, there's only one cheese sandwich that's ever done. This that I'm [00:04:00] aware of. Mm-hmm. Fyre Festival, right?

Kyle Risi: Yes, absolutely. For our listeners who don't know the story, what is Fyre Festival?

Adam Cox: Fyre Festival was gonna be this like brand new festival event, really hyped up ahead, a load of influencers, it was gonna be like the most expensive, most luxurious. You're gonna stay in these like amazing, I don't know, luxury camping and then go to a festival. Mm-hmm. A bit like, what's the American one? Coachella. Yeah. Like that. But I guess even more kind of Instagrammy.

Kyle Risi: And it was implied from the marketing videos that you would be hanging out with the very supermodels depicted in that promotional video models on jet skis. There'd be private jets, there'd be gourmet food. Basically, a lot of promises were made, but in the end, it all ended up going to shit in the most hilarious way.

It was almost like the whole world was collectively watching this carry on film unfold on the internet as the tweets were just coming in

Adam Cox: I don't remember much about it until after the event, I guess it was the [00:05:00] documentary that's really publicized

Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's the kind of thing that really broadened into the mainstream. But in the aftermath, this became like a perfect case study for how Hype Machines had to fine tune themselves to really prey on people's vanity and that desire for status.

Mm-hmm. It all happened sort of at that peak of Instagram history, which we really haven't moved on from, but it was all about looking the best, being the best, having the best experiences. And so this festival was looking to capitalize on those people's insecurities.

But while the guy behind all of this, a guy called Billy McFarland probably had noble intentions. He was just completely Adam out of his depth. They were spending money that literally didn't exist.

Even early on when it was very clear they were failing to deliver on all these promises, they just kept going in the very naive hope that's just everything would just magically work out in the end.

Adam Cox: Yeah. That rarely happens though.

Kyle Risi: It never happens.

Adam Cox: There's no fairies that come in and just like make things [00:06:00] better.

Kyle Risi: Oh, I thought it was angels.

Adam Cox: So the, was it, the guy that organized it, I can't remember his name, but I'm sure you'll come on to him. Was it his first time organizing a festival like this, I assume?

Kyle Risi: Yes. First time organizing a festival but not his first time organizing events.

Okay.

So today, Adam on the compendium, I'm gonna tell you about Fyre Festival. I'm gonna tell you about the glossy con that started long before they even arrived on Pablo Escobar's Island. 'cause that was one of the big promises, wasn't it?

Is that it's gonna be held on Pablo Escobar's Island.

So I'm gonna tell you how FY Festival wasn't even Billy McFarland's first con. How the red flag should have been seen years before. I'm gonna tell you how Fyre Festival came to be, how it crashed miserably and what it was like at Fyre Festival itself. We'll hear some firsthand accounts, but also. How none of this ended up stopping Billy, because Adam, he's still out there lurking, and we're gonna check on him as recently as this [00:07:00] year in 2025.

Adam Cox: By lurking, what does that mean? I feel like he's hiding, but like behind a bush,

Kyle Risi: he's, He's just biting his time. He's waiting for the next opportunity to try and make it big in this world. I see. Mm-hmm.

So Adam, today's story all starts with a boy man called Billy McFarland. His story is very much a rise and fall story only when it comes to Billy McFarland. Imagine his rise and fall like a basketball. Each bounce is a brand new scam, rising a little each time.

Billy comes from a fairly wealthy family of real estate developers in New Jersey. They're wealthy enough to send him to private school, where a 13, he starts up an online sourcing company that sets out to match clients with web developers and designers.

Now he's 13 at the time.

Adam Cox: That's, that seems quite entrepreneurial.

Kyle Risi: That's what private school money will get you, man.

Adam Cox: little Kickstarter.

Kyle Risi: So after graduating high school, he attends Bucknell University to study computer engineering. And Billy is fascinating to me. He has this reputation of kind of being [00:08:00] cool. like you probably remember that kind of aura that he kind of gave off

Adam Cox: Yeah, is he a bit preppy?

Kyle Risi: Yes, He's got that preppy sense about him, and that's because to him. His entire image is all about optics, but the more I got to know him while researching the story, it was harder for me to place him on that kind of core scale. Like on one hand he comes across as this all American kind of douchebag type, but on the other hand, his dress sense really doesn't match up with that reputation. He dresses more like a web developer, basically. I see.

Adam Cox: And so where did you land on the call scale with him

Kyle Risi: Well, the thing is though, like on one hand he's surrounded by all these rappers. And he, socialites had a really cool, really kind of hip and stuff, but he kind of stands out in a way that doesn't really fit in that kind of circle. He also walks in a way that's really off to me because his arms don't really swing when he walks.

It's really weird. I don't

Adam Cox: trust anyone that doesn't swing their arms. I

Kyle Risi: know and when he does, it's not so much that he walks forward as much as he's falling forward. Does that make sense? He kind of leans forward when he walks. Okay.

Adam Cox: That's a, I'm trying to picture that. I just [00:09:00] feel like some kind of cartoon character.

Kyle Risi: But hey, remember, we're not here to judge. All I'm saying is that his reputation doesn't really fit that kind of image that he is portraying to the rest of the world.

You also get the sense that he's one of those kids in the movies that kind of gets adopted by the cool kids only because he has a car.

And so he finds himself in this crowd of cool kids. He's trying to walk the walk, talk the talk. His mates are like Jar Rule and they're, he's mates

Adam Cox: with Jar Rule.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Hey, jar Rule's a big part of the story. Did you not know that? I mean, it's coming back to me. It's

Adam Cox: coming back to me.

Kyle Risi: So like Jar Rule is out there casually throwing out the N word and throwing out fucks left and right.

But Billy, you get the sense that his mom might be listening, so he's like, oh yeah, like last night I got totally F Man. Or like, he's like, gosh darn it. So he doesn't really have the same lingo as the people that he is hanging out with. Yeah. So he is a bit of a noble

Adam Cox: Yeah. Instead he gets spangled rather than pissed. Yet he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Kyle Risi: He does, he does. It's really strange. Actually, I, and I haven't listened to this yet, but he is interviewed on DI A CEO. Is he? [00:10:00] Yes. Interesting. Yeah. Worth checking out. And he's a big fat liar as well.

So in his first year of college, Billy decides that he's gonna drop out as a freshman because for Billy College was just for chumps and he wanted to be a tech entrepreneur. And so he sets off to build a web platform.

He decides that living in a world that already has Facebook and LinkedIn is missing an opportunity to combine them both.

Adam Cox: Well, like a work social.

Kyle Risi: Yeah,

Adam Cox: it's really dumb. He calls

Kyle Risi: it Sling.

Adam Cox: Oh, that's a terrible name.

Kyle Risi: And basically it's a content sharing network that is in no way, unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, but is exactly the same.

Adam Cox: So do you say to someone, oh, can you sling me later? Exactly. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: Sling. Sling. Sling sounds like a medical procedure, doesn't it?

Adam Cox: It sounds like it is. If that makes sense on a matia. That's what I mean.

Kyle Risi: Oh, I got, oh man. I got sling last night. You can use it in a dirty sentence.

Yeah. Doctors don't think I'm gonna make it. I've got Slinged.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: The point is that nothing really comes off [00:11:00] Spling, and so that is our second bounce in Billy's rise and fall kind of story arc.

But then in August of 2013, 22-year-old Billy launches Magnises and Magnises is a credit card membership club targeted specifically to millennials only. It isn't a credit card at all.

Then what is it?

The way that it works is that for $250 a year, they send you a black Magnises card, which you then link to your regular credit card, and then you use that as a substitute. Basically, every time you spend on your Magnises card, you earn exclusive membership perks like access to a private luxury lounge in the heart of downtown Manhattan. You also have access to a concierge service that will kind of help you get concert tickets. You'll get on the VIP list at clubs and some of the hottest restaurants in the city, basically.

Adam Cox: So it's kind of like a perceived added value that you get with joining this club.

Kyle Risi: Basically, he wants to mirror the prestige that comes with having an American Express Black card only. You don't have to be filthy rich to have one. You just need $250. I see.

He also works [00:12:00] really hard to make owning a Magnises card feel like a status symbol, and he does this by really playing on people's vanity, which he himself is a massive victim of.

The wild thing is that he makes these cards himself by hand, so he'll like copy the mag strip from your existing card over to the new Magnises card and then he'll send it to you, which he does all from his apartment, which is also his office, but also the very exclusive member lounge that he offers to members.

What? He lives in the lounge. He lives in the lounge, if you own a Magnises card, you get to hang out at his house.

Adam Cox: How big is this place?

Kyle Risi: It's a townhouse in Manhattan.

Adam Cox: I guess it makes sense that, I dunno. Saves on rent. I dunno.

Kyle Risi: And Adam, the idea sort of had legs, right? Like he manages to raise $1.5 million in investor funding and by December, 2013, the company has 500 members. By 2014 memberships have risen to 1,200. And by 2016 he has 30,000 [00:13:00] members.

That's a ton of money, right?

Adam Cox: He has some good growth year on year,

Kyle Risi: but two months later at a conference in Portugal, Billy starts telling everyone that he now has a hundred thousand members.

Adam Cox: So just lies.

Kyle Risi: Which, if true, this value is basically Magnises at $25 million a year in annual recurring revenue. And he's achieved all of that in just three years. So not bad. If true,

Adam Cox: if true, but we're saying it's not true.

Kyle Risi: I'm very dubious about whether or not it's true or not.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: And people are attracted because of the status that comes with owning this Magnises card. They're all really young, eager millennials trying to kind of make it in Manhattan who are all sharing the commonality of being kind of a cardholder. And so to them, the biggest perk is the networking opportunities.

They can all now come together at this exclusive Magnises member lounge they hold business meetings. Some are there just to chill outs, of course. These devolve into evening gatherings where they host some of the wildest parties. So you can imagine how this exclusive [00:14:00] townhouse in lower Manhattan just gets absolutely trashed.

' cause millennials have no respect. That's

Adam Cox: not true.

Kyle Risi: We don't have any respect.

Adam Cox: I think we do now. I mean it's like 10 years on from this point but then is it a bit like Soho House, where that kind of exclusive club you get access to different perks or swimming pool and stuff like that?

Kyle Risi: I think so. But this is just a Manhattan townhouse.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't sound as good.

Kyle Risi: here's the thing, some of them actually end up living there, including for a time Anna Delvy. Really? Yeah. That was during her couch surfing days. So she ends up living at this townhouse in low Manhattan with Billy McFarland.

Adam Cox: It kind of makes sense because yeah, she didn't have anywhere to live.

Kyle Risi: Of course, when the landlords find out what's been happening, they go and inspect the townhouse, and of course it's trashed. There's like a hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to the property.

They've destroyed several antique windows, which cannot be replaced virtually. All the kitchen appliances are ruined. They find bodily fluids stained on every wall and carpet, including vomit urine, even shit stains that they weren't able to get out.

Oh [00:15:00] God.

Adam Cox: What

Kyle Risi: was going on at this place? These are supposed to be young professional millennials, but I guess when your membership fee is $250, like that's open to everyone , isn't it?

Adam Cox: Pretty much. That's like what you pay like a tenor to go to a club anyway, so yeah. Maybe it's not that exclusive.

Kyle Risi: So obviously the landlord sues him. The lawsuit is settled in 2016. Obviously Billy is evicted. He moves magnises to an actual office space this time in Chelsea, where business just continues as normal the way he spends his days, Adam is getting more people to, of course, join Magnises. He copies the card details over to these Magnises cards and when he isn't doing that, he's acting as the concierge service for his members.

So he's booking tickets to events, he's booking reservations at restaurants, and of course throwing very exclusive member parties.

It's pretty much just him at this moment in time. And I mean, he is parting so hard by night that during the day he just ends up mismanaging the entire operation.

Which is by the way, very much a scam as it is. He'll send you like confirmation of tickets that you've booked like a [00:16:00] Broadway show into Hamilton, which was like impossible to get at the time. And then those people would then show up at the theater only to find out that there's no tickets at all.

Adam Cox: So he just took their money.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, pretty much. People will also then rock up for like some of the most exclusive restaurants in the city in the maitre d would just literally laugh in their face and be like, we literally book bookings like nine months in advance.

Wow.

And it's really embarrassing 'cause many of these people are young, professional entrepreneurs, like literally taking clients out for business meals. And so as a result, Magnises ends up getting a ton of negative reviews online. But in spite of all of that, he still manages to secure investor funding.

He comes up with all sorts of excuses. Like these reviews were just kind of other competitors looking to break into the market. He'll tell them not to worry that he's working on getting them taken down, et cetera. So like people buy it,

Adam Cox: I'm getting another kind of like fake it to your, make it kind of vibe. Mm-hmm. Or at least you're doing what you can to make this business a success.

Although,

Kyle Risi: but he is mismanaging it quite a bit. He's

Adam Cox: mismanaging it. It is. He is calling people. I'm getting very much [00:17:00] Elizabeth Holmes kind of vibes. Yes.

Kyle Risi: That's it

Adam Cox: does he wear a turtleneck?

Kyle Risi: No, he doesn't. He just wears his little preppy little polo tops. He looks like a complete geek, So at some point in 2016, Billy is planning an event where he's looking to book several acts to perform at a member party for Magnises one of those acts is none other than Gerald himself. Do you remember Gerald?

Adam Cox: I do. I'm trying to remember the songs that he sang.

Kyle Risi: The one that comes to mind is, uh, always some time. Waste some time. Gave you my all. Gave you my all. That's it, baby. Be mine. That one. Yes. I think he's also an like, and Fast and Furious. I think just the first one though, I always get him confused with some of the other rappers that are in there.

Adam Cox: To be honest, they're all the same. They're all Hey films. The films is what I meant. Let me just be clear on that. Wow. Wow. Don't take us off the air.

Kyle Risi: By the way, this blows my mind. Jar. His real name is Jeffrey

Adam Cox: Ge. Well, it kind of makes sense, Jeffrey. Hmm. That doesn't sound, I don't know. Cool enough.

Kyle Risi: It doesn't really have the same

Adam Cox: hip hop vibe as [00:18:00] Jar Rule though, does it?

It doesn't.

Kyle Risi: No. You know what? Because Jarl is such a fuckhead in the story, that's what we're gonna call him. I'm gonna call him Jeffrey. Jeffrey. His name's Jeffrey, throughout this entire episode. Okay, so Billy's trying to connect with Jeffrey to book him for an event. He reaches out to someone on Instagram who says he'll connect him, but he wants $500 in order to connect him to Jeffrey.

So Billy pays the money, they give him the contact, he calls the guy, he says, sure, I'll connect you to Jeffrey, but I want $700.

So Billy's like , fine. He gives him the money. This guy gives him another name. He reaches out to this other guy and he's like, sure, I'll connect you to Jeffrey, but I want a thousand bucks.

It's just impossible to get connected to him.

It's like a finder's fee. But a chain of them, it's just bullshit. Just go straight to the source. Well, that's the problem. He can't go to the source. He can't get a hold of of Jeffrey.

Adam Cox: You just need to log onto Jeffrey's Instagram and then track him down.

Kyle Risi: You would think, right? Mm. So after the gig, Billy is like, listen Jeff, can I call you Jeff or do you prefer Jeffrey?

So it's like, look, it was really difficult to get hold of you. There must be an easier [00:19:00] way. And he is like, how about you join me in a partnership where we build an app that will make it easier to contact talent without getting ripped off? Okay.

And Jeff loves the idea. So together they start up a talent booking platform called FY Media. I. I see. Okay. And it's a relatively good idea. There's definitely a gap in the market and the platform promises to create a smoother booking process for parties, events, festivals, meetups, basically anything that you want to involve another celebrity with, they'll just all get set up on the app and then you've got a direct contact to them where you can discuss bookings fees, all sorts of things, terms and conditions, you name it.

Adam Cox: Does this like take the agents out of it?

Kyle Risi: Yes. Basically they want to get rid of the middleman.

Adam Cox: Do you know what? Yeah, I get that because I've worked with influencer agents and they are just, yeah, weird.

Kyle Risi: And the thing is though, they want payment for everything. They want payment, everything for like even a cut off the marketing spend that you make on it as well. It's just ridiculous.

Adam Cox: You got that from me. Don't make out like see, I listen. I listen to what you say

Kyle Risi: when you talk about your job.

Adam Cox: Don't make out [00:20:00] like you know this.

Kyle Risi: So Magnises

Adam Cox: Sort of,

Kyle Risi: of bounces out of existence and Billy and Jeff now start working through the logistics of making this platform work.

Mm-hmm.

But they need funding and so they have to form a whole promotional strategy around this concept in order to generate buzz, which will then generate investment, which will then be used to fund building the platform. Simple math, basically Adam, simple math. Easy math. So they put their heads together, they decide that they're going to host a concert.

The idea was to invite a bunch of industry professionals, fire media, and the platform will then be at the center of all of this. They'll heavily imply that all the acts have been booked through this company. In reality, it's all just Jeff's kind of connections to the industry. And then after the concert. Everyone will see how amazing and seamless the event was, which will then all be credited to this FY Media platform that doesn't exist yet.

Adam Cox: Sure.

Kyle Risi: I see. So they start with this idea of a concert, but then they think this isn't big enough, [00:21:00] Jeff. Jeff is not big enough. And so they up the ante and this then becomes a multi-day music festival.

But still, Adam, it's not big enough. It needs to be bigger. So then someone suggests that they make it a luxury festival that will include influencers, private jets, yachts, mission star food.

They love it.

Adam Cox: It sounds ideal. It sounds like this really.

Kyle Risi: But this escalated massively from just a one day concert to now this music festival over multiple days with yachts and private jets and stuff.

Adam Cox: Oh, hang on. So did the, the event with Jeffrey actually happen?

Kyle Risi: Yes, they had, they had that event

Adam Cox: that's tested. That's worked well.

Kyle Risi: It was just, it was just a private member event where he would come perform and do a meet and greet and things like that.

Adam Cox: Got you. So that actually happened, that was successful

Kyle Risi: How is that not gonna be successful? Hey Jeff, here's $10,000. Come to my event.

Adam Cox: True. Either he probably paid him more than $10,000, do you reckon?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, for one evening

Adam Cox: I would think so.

Kyle Risi: Oh, it's because you've got the experience with the influencers.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And then there's like an extra [00:22:00] fee for every drink that he has to drink.

Kyle Risi: If you want me drunk, it's gonna cost you, but then someone says, why don't we host the entire thing in The Bahamas?

Adam Cox: It sounds great, but I just think that's a logistical nightmare. Mm-hmm. And it's gonna cost a lot of money.

Kyle Risi: Oh yes. That, that's the thing. They have no concepts of the logistics behind what this is going to involve.

So they start scouting for a location. It has to be somewhere super special. They finally land on an island called Norman Key, they discover to their delight, it used to be owned by a guy called Carlos Led River, who just so happened to be connected to Kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Adam Cox: Ah. So they're gonna go on an island where drugs have been smuggled. Exactly.

Kyle Risi: It was kinda like the distribution point. Mm-hmm. Where they would take all the drugs from South America to this little key, and then be disseminated across the United States.

Adam Cox: Cool. That would be a good place to have out. I wonder if you can like, hunt around and find a few grams of cocaine and just lying. Little baggy. I found a baggy,

Kyle Risi: but yeah. You get the sense of the allure, uh, behind it being connected to Pablo [00:23:00] Escobar. Sure.

Billy, of course, starts telling everyone that it's actually Pablo Escobar's Island, which it isn't. And that they had bought the island, which they hadn't. They're just renting it. When they're meeting the owners, billy cannot shut up about the fact that this once used to be owned by Pablo Escobar, and the owners literally have to keep reminding him no, no, not Pablo Escobar it's the EVAs family. And Billy's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pablo Escobar. They're like, no, no, Billy, not Pablo Rivers.

Adam Cox: Sure, sure.

Kyle Risi: So Pablo Escobar.

Exactly. But also the owners are trying to improve the reputation of the island. So they say that part of the conditions of the lease is that they cannot mention any association with rivers. And Billy is like, yeah, yeah, Pablo, they're like, Billy, nor Pablo. He's like, okay, fine.

Adam Cox: Reckon has got like really white sand beaches. From all the cocaine.

Kyle Risi: It's just cocaine. So in December, 2016, they hired the best in the business. They start bringing together all the cogs to market this [00:24:00] festival that they were gonna call Fyre Festival.

Adam Cox: That makes sense. They've got another business. Yeah,

Kyle Risi: exactly. They hire a guy called Matt Projects to handle the advertising, the marketing. Mm-hmm. They hire a guy called, uh, fuck Jerry, to handle all the social media. Is that his

Adam Cox: Christian name? That, no. No. Okay. Just checking.

Kyle Risi: It's this cocaine name. If FY Festival was going to be this luxury multi-day music festival, then the crux of the event, they needed celebrities.

The marketing team pulled together some of the biggest models in the world, including Bella Hadid, Emily Rotowski, I believe that's how you pronounce her name. Hailey Beiber. They basically ship them all off to Norman s Key in The Bahamas to shoot a promo video. They have one camera that is filming all the models. Another is basically following Billy and what he's doing. It's a bit like what Anna Delvy was doing when she was documenting her rise to success.

Do you remember when they got trapped in kind of Marrakesh? Mm-hmm. That's when the, the videographer was like, I'm outta here. Yeah. Like, you've got no money to pay me, so I'm [00:25:00] leaving.

So I do wonder actually, 'cause they were friends, so I do wonder whose idea it was first, did she get the idea from what Billy was doing or did Billy get the idea from what she was doing?

Adam Cox: Yeah. I wonder if just that social circle a lot of people were doing this. Yeah. 'cause they just wanted to be on Instagram and Famous or whatever. Possibly.

Kyle Risi: Like capturing footage was really key at that point, wasn't it? Mm-hmm So on Norman's Key, the entire shoot ends up being one giant party.

They drink all day, they're throwing up, they're taking drugs, they're sniffing the sand. At one point you see Billy pass out on the beach clutching his beer while everyone's working around him. That's how hard they're partying.

Adam Cox: Wow. During the day.

Kyle Risi: During the day. Yeah. Geez. To them, yes, they were there filming this important marketing campaign, but also they're there to party. Right. As Jeff would say, just living it up in the city. You don't get their reference. No. It's one of his songs, Adam Basically in the end, it's impossible for the film crew to direct any of them. 'Cause nobody's listening.

One of the producers is trying to arrange for them to be filmed visiting a group of wild pigs on like a nearby island. It's kind of sort of a popular thing for people to [00:26:00] do. You can go off and just pat them,

Adam Cox: basically go see some wild pigs. How different is that to seeing some on an actual farmer, but they're

Kyle Risi: on an island, they're in paradise. Adam, let's go see the pigs. Do you not remember when we used to watch, um, what was that show on E four? Castaway or the island or Shipwrecked?

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And they had pigs on the island as well. I think it might have been kind of in this era of The Bahamas.

Oh, okay. And there was just these wild pigs running around. So it's quite a popular thing to do. It's very Instagram worthy, pigs. Yeah, pigs basically. Someone tells 'em that they're not allowed to do that. Maybe they're protected. I don't know. But Jeff is like, we're spending so much money if we want to go and see the pigs, we'll go see the fucking pigs.

it's a great point from Jeff.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, fine. Go see the pigs.

Kyle Risi: Go see the pigs. there's also this footage of Jeffrey just yelling at the models to like get in the water. He's like saying bikinis are optional, and the girls are like, I, ew, I, that's a little gross. I don't wanna get in the water. And he's like, get in the fucking water. So like straight up gangster rap energy. Do you know what I mean? No [00:27:00] misogyny, but bit of a pig.

Finally the video is ready. It's lovely. It opens with a drone shot zooming down on the island over like a private jet.

You see models in bikinis, jet skis, yachts. They're just cruising around The Bahamas. Of course, the setting is paradise, crystal blue waters interspersed with kind of cuts of the crowds and DJ sets. The video says, welcome to Fyre Festival over two transformative weekends. An immersive music festival, offering the best in music, food, art, and of course adventure.

Adam Cox: Two weekends.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So it's gonna last a week. I think it's over the weekend. And then that's the first stint. You can stay for the whole week and then come to the second part. Oh, I see. But maybe it's just to cater for different groups of people.

Eventually the two minute video ends with text saying, join us tickets on sale@fyrefestival.com. Limited availability. 'cause that's like gonna. People are gonna be like, oh, limited availability. I better get my ticket mean. Exactly.

Adam Cox: It's a selling tactic.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. You know, you work with marketing, you deal with celebrities all the time, so [00:28:00] it's a good video. Like I can't even really make fun of it. It's quite tasteful, it's beautiful, it's idyllic, it's lovely.

But then on the 12th of January, 2017, everything comes together when they coordinate 250 of the furthest reaching influences and celebrities on social media, including Kendall Jenner, Emily Rakowski, and they're all basically going to simultaneously post a link to this video on the Instagram feed, along with a single solitary orange square, so a tile.

Adam Cox: I see. Okay.

Kyle Risi: The idea was that across the world, millions of people would start seeing this orange square disappearing on their feeds and think like, what that is, what is this? Yeah.

Adam Cox: It's kind of a bit like gorilla marketing, where you're just trying to get. It's a bit of a stunt, essentially. Get the marketing out there.

Kyle Risi: I've not heard you talk about this in your job. Should should. I know, have you mentioned this before?

Adam Cox: No, but you'll probably repeat on the next podcast,

Kyle Risi: in effect it's genius. Basically it works. How much do you wanna hazard a guest that they paid Jenner to post out Orange Square on a feed, which probably took out all of 34 [00:29:00] seconds.

Adam Cox: Probably like 250 grand.

Kyle Risi: Yes.

Adam Cox: Yeah. See, I know my influences.

Kyle Risi: That's just wild though. Mm-hmm. Isn't that mental? Kendall was probably obviously the highest paid of them all, but remember they got hundreds of celebrities and influencers to do this, so that's some serious cash that they spend straight off the bat. I think it's like something like $5.1 million. Mm. Just for this little bit.

Overnight, the FY Media Instagram completely blows up. Everyone's wondering what these orange tiles are about. They watch the promo video. They of course, see that it's a luxury festival in The Bahamas. Everybody wants in. It's very much implied, Adam, that it's going to be attended by all the models and the celebrities that were captured in this video, that they would be hanging out with them too.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I remember watching the video and it was quite good in terms of, kind of pitching that it would be this kind of paradise, this party island, this really luxurious place. It's gonna cost a lot, I'd imagine.

Kyle Risi: Oh yes. So in terms of accommodation, you had a lot to choose from. You could stay in one of their luxury [00:30:00] rustic kind of glamping tents.

If that was way too rough for you, then you could book one of their exclusive private villas. Right. And they range in size from like apartments to massive mansion villas on this island.

But if you didn't wanna stay in a private villa, another option that you had was sustain a luxury yacht. Those tickets went for $250,000 and came with like a private chef on board. So the height of luxury, but even without the yacht, the food at the festival was set to be provided by world renowned Michelin Star, chef Steven Star, and his catering company, star Catering.

The acts schedule to be performing included. Blink 180 2, major laser pusher tea with DJ sets by disclosure and other artists like Skepta and Lilia. These are huge names, so I'm told, I mean, I only know disclosure and Blink one A two, but that's it.

Adam Cox: I know you're not really a music person.

Kyle Risi: No, I mean I know music. I just don't know music. Music. Actually, one thing I did find [00:31:00] out is that apparently in the States it's pronounced Blink 180 2, not Blink 180 2.

Adam Cox: Really?

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: Blink 180 2,

Kyle Risi: blink. And they even write it out as Blink 1, 8 0, space two. Oh's. Blink 180 2. Yeah. Not Blink 180 2.

Adam Cox: Making two numbers into one number?

Yeah,

Kyle Risi: exactly. There's no need for that, but I guess that's maybe how Blink one eight T two says it. So you can't say like, oh yeah, my name's Adam. And I'm like, I'm not calling you that.

Adam Cox: I'm gonna call you a a, I'm gonna call you a fine. Yeah. Alright.

Kyle Risi: So some of the people who bought tickets, they wanted to specifically go to see their favorite artists perform, the festival looked incredible, but it wasn't the main reason why they were booking tickets. They wanted to see Blink 180 2.

So the whole thing just looked and felt sublime. It was going to be as promised an experience of a lifetime. So it's no surprise that within 48 hours of the tickets going in sale, 95% of them are sold. And so by all accounts, the [00:32:00] marketing campaign is a major success.

Adam Cox: That's impressive. How many tickets? Like 5,000. 5,000. And what sort of ticket price were they?

Kyle Risi: I dunno, a lot of money. Well, we know that the top tier price was like 250 mm-hmm. Thousand US dollars. So a lot of money. I'm gonna say like, I think like 500 quid. $500. $500. I, I think, I think that was a starting price.

Adam Cox: I see. You don't know. Do you?

Kyle Risi: I think it is $500

Adam Cox: Fine. So the, I'm just trying to work out how much money they are potentially taking in ticket sales the fact that they managed to sell 95%. Of the potential revenue from ticket sales that quickly.

Mm-hmm. Impressive.

Kyle Risi: It is impressive. Yeah. For a marketing campaign that is like unheard of.

Adam Cox: Think I'd ever do this though. I don't care how rich I would be, but I feel like I need to look at Trustpilot at least to get some idea if it's good thing.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. They have no reputational credibility behind them, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: All they've got is magnises. And if you go look at Magnises, reviews, they're gonna be really dog shit reviews, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. Like we can't even go to a restaurant unless it's got four and a half [00:33:00] star.

No, no.

Kyle Risi: You can't go to a restaurant unless it's got four and a half stars. I look at the restaurant and go, looks clean, looks tidy, food looks good, let's go.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But you don't wanna go to a place, you sit down and then you kind of, you're just disappointed and you look on your phone and you go, oh, we should have sat across the way. 'Cause there's a better restaurant.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, as soon as you go to a restaurant because it's five stars, over time, it always ends up separating itself from what it, because it's relying on, oh, we got five stars so we can charge more money. And then before you know it, it's not value for money anymore.

Adam Cox: True. That's a fair point.

Kyle Risi: anyway, they've sold 95% of these tickets and this is where the first problems start to arise, Adam. 'cause even though they hadn't sold all the tickets yet, they had in fact sold more tickets. Could actually fit on the island.

Adam Cox: Who was doing logistics? Exactly.

Kyle Risi: That's the point. And he lies the problem because people warned him as much, like he hired what he called the best in the business to help pull this off. And from the very start, they would constantly advise him against all sorts of different things and he'd just ignore them anyway. For example, they did [00:34:00] the maths on the ticket sales. They worked out how many people they could actually accommodate. They even suggested obviously putting caps on the number of ticket sales.

But his math purely revolves around revenue rather than logistic feasibility. And so when people push back, he just literally fires them. He is like Elizabeth Holmes, who would say, I want this particular outcome by this particular date. And when a team says That's impossible, she'd be like, you just need to find a way to make it happen.

Adam Cox: I mean, there is an element where you should, you know, be solutions driven. I agree. But then also just do the number crunching, like, yeah, how much is it actually gonna cost you to get these people ally housing and not

Kyle Risi: do any of this at this moment in time? And by the time it starts to catch up with them, they end up just chasing their tail a lot of the time.

Adam Cox: Was there no finance, like manager, director, or anything?

Kyle Risi: They come in a lot later when things get real desperate. And so literally with this kind of mentality that he has where he's like, just do what you're told. I need this outcome. Make it happen. Within weeks, he's literally fired and replaced everyone who objects to him.

Apparently his favorite thing to [00:35:00] say during board meetings was we're not a problems based company. We're a solutions based company. Oh, God, you're being way too negative.

Adam Cox: I'm like, Ugh, you're being way too much of a prick.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, we can't say that sacked.

So the next big spanner in the works comes directly as a result of the infamous promotional video because in the video, against the wishes of the owners, there is big B texts overlaid across a video that says An island once owned by Pablo Escobar.

Adam Cox: Well, they're not allowed to say that.

Kyle Risi: So there are kicks off the island.

Adam Cox: Oh really?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. Not only was Fire Festival sold on this really cool idea that it was this cartel kingpins island, which wasn't even true to begin with, they now needed to source another location, which you would think would mean that they would change the promotional video, right?

Mm-hmm. Eh, wrong. They still say this new island that they find is Pablo Escobar's Island,

Adam Cox: Kyle, it sounds like you're being a problem We're looking for solutions [00:36:00] here,

Kyle Risi: by the way, the festival at this point is eight weeks away,

Adam Cox: so not long. No. And they're gonna switch islands at this point.

Kyle Risi: They have to start searching for a whole new island, and then they've got eight weeks to get everything sorted.

Basically In the documentary, they interview a bunch of actual festival organizers, right? Mm-hmm. And they all say you are cutting it fine if you start planning your festival one year ahead. Wow. So the fact that they are now selling just eight weeks out, they have to source a brand new island that can fit the capacity and the infrastructure required to accommodate the 5,000 tickets that they'd already sold is just insane. It's insane.

Adam Cox: I guess offering a refund at this point. That was just not even an option. No,

Kyle Risi: no. This has to go ahead, right? Mm-hmm. And remember, they had already sold most of the premium tickets that came with villas and apartments.

They had a sense of how many they were working with and how many of the other island could accommodate, but now they had to find a whole new island that would not only let them host the festival, but also had enough accommodation for [00:37:00] all those premium ticket holders, right? They needed villas and apartments and all these different things. It's a logistical nightmare.

Adam Cox: I just, I don't think I could do it if you're faced with this dilemma, I mean, in some ways like props too, him, because in a way he powered through, he'd found somewhere else that feels like such a daunting challenge

Kyle Risi: i'd be freaking out. Yeah. At least you've got a big team of people around you that can kind of, you can spread the load. But the thing is though, he's not listening to them a lot of the time. Yeah.

So they go hunting for this new island. Most of them are either not suitable or they literally just laugh in their face. Like, there's no way that you can pull off a festival in eight weeks. At this point, they were also hemorrhaging money. So any of the islands that were suitable were just far too expensive.

They don't really have a budget at all. they're just kind of looking at what's inside, their kitty at that moment in time and go, okay, so we've got like 4 million to work with right now.

We have to find a solution that's gonna fit within that budget, rather than going, how much money do we have? And let's start allocating money to the different things. They're not doing it like that.

Eventually [00:38:00] though, through Billy's shit talking, he manages to persuade some local government in The Bahamas to give him a permit to use a site on the island of Great Exuma.

When I say site, I literally mean a construction site.

Adam Cox: When you said that, I just thought all they're getting is a portion of an island.

Kyle Risi: Yep. It's an abandoned resort development. So it's literally just rubble and concrete. There's no sand, there's no palm trees, it's just rubble and grass.

Of course, that also meant there's no infrastructure there at all. There's no water, electricity, not even plumbing.

Adam Cox: Didn't even think about that.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It also wasn't even a private island, Adam. It definitely wasn't remote outta the 3000 or so islands and keys in The Bahamas. Great. Zu is literally the 13th largest island in the region. In fact, the site is adjacent to a Sandals Resort, so you literally cannot get any less remote and private than act. That's I, I like that laugh because it's kind of like, it's a mocking laugh, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's just the thought. Imagine being on this like remote island. You get there and you go, oh, [00:39:00] there's people by a swimming pool over there.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Hi guys. And you know, because we know the qua of it, they're gonna be living in, you're gonna see these people just going, hi guy waving with their pina coladas. And you're like literally in a slum

Adam Cox: eating a cheese sandwich.

Kyle Risi: But this is what they have to work with and it's eight weeks out. They update all the marks material. No longer was it Norman key, but instead, it would be the Island of Great Zuma. Coincidentally, this too, as we know, was also owned by Pablo Escobar.

It wasn't.

Oh, right. I always believed you. Like they changed all the marketing material, but they don't update that bit. They still tell people that it's Pablo Esca, because to him it's a real big selling point right? Mm-hmm. That he wants to maintain, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

Adam Cox: This is Pablo's building site.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. He owned this construction site, this one.

So they re-released new maps of the site. They Photoshop out the adjoining land, because remember, this is not a private island, it's just a section of a greater island. So they Photoshop all that out to make it look like [00:40:00] it's private and remote. Oh my, that's so misleading. Yeah.

So bad. I have no idea how they're going to explain that. When people arrive, like you'll probably get there and they'll put you on a boat, they'll loop you out to sea and then swing around to the construction site and like, welcome to the island. When in reality you'll be like, I could have literally just walked there.

Like I can see them getting out the airport, walking across the road. Do we have to get on the boat? Can I just cross that Albert rope? But they're like, no. You have to ride by boat, but when I look at the leaflet, this doesn't look like the island.

Yeah, it doesn't. Anyway, the new site is booked. There's no going back. Next they have to start sorting out accommodation on the island, specifically the villas in the apartments for the 500 premium ticket holders.

At first, it looks like they might have enough accommodations since Great. Exuma is the 13th largest island in The Bahamas, right?

Problem is the festival sets take place during the islands National regatta, one of the busiest weekends of the year, A time when the population literally doubles in size, and so the [00:41:00] island has already been booked out for a solid 12 months ahead of this. There's no hotels, there's no private villas. Not even shitty apartments are available.

Here's the kicker. 250 of those premium ticket holders were getting their accommodation for free because they were the celebrities and the influencers who'd posted the orange square on their accounts. So this was kind of, sort of part of their package deal.

Adam Cox: Where are they gonna stay?

Kyle Risi: Exactly.

One of the consultants that's brought in after Billy, literally fired everyone, tell him like, like, you need to cancel the influencers, since they aren't paying for anything and also like, there's literally no way for them to stay anyway.

And Billy is like, we cannot fuck around with them because the reason this festival has received the attention that it has is because of them. If we upset them, all they're gonna do is just tweet about it and before we know it, the FY Festival brand will just be ruined before it's even taken off.

So instead the consultants suggests canceling the regular lower tier kind of ticket holders instead. Problem with that is. They can't issue any refunds because they physically have spent all the money.

Oh God. So he's really screwed [00:42:00] himself.

Adam Cox: So you'd think like there's all the signs here to say, this isn't gonna work.

Kyle Risi: Just cancel it,

Adam Cox: cancel it, file for bankruptcy. I don't know. But the fact that he still tries to salvage this.

Kyle Risi: They couldn't cancel those lower tier tickets because at that moment in time, he was considering selling even more tickets in order to raise even more money. So like canceling those low tier tickets wasn't even an option at this point.

Adam Cox: Sure. Invite more people that you can't like accommodate. Accommodate.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. By this point, they're only now getting around to recruiting the technical production company to set up the stages, including obviously all the audio and the visuals for the festival.

When they reach out, the production company literally just laugh in their face. They're like, we still need to serve at their site. Right now, the entire thing is just a construction site. They say you don't even have electricity. But also the stages literally have to be designed from scratch. And the festival is just like weeks away.

Adam Cox: And they usually, they're picking up their stages like weeks in advance.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it needs to be designed, they have to think about the acoustics. They do have to do the site survey to make sure that it's a [00:43:00] pleasant experience for the attendees. Right. Billy's response is literally, I'll pay whatever it takes. And in the end they're like, okay, it's not gonna be pretty though.

Yeah, but he doesn't have any money. How is he gonna pay them? He's gonna get the money. Because a couple weeks before the festival attendees all receive.

The same email reminding them that the festival was actually gonna be a cashless festival. So that's new.

It says that everyone would need to load up the electronic festival wristbands with money since this would act as their wallet for the entire weekend.

Adam Cox: How can you predict how much you're gonna spend? I know you can like budget yourself, but you're like, you probably get there and this burger costs $50 or something like that. You're like, oh, I didn't budget for that.

Kyle Risi: Well, Billy's gonna tell you exactly how much he needs to load up there because he says that most attendees load up around $3,000 all the weekend.

But if they wanted to reserve tables or kind of partake in extra activities, they would need much, much more. Which is bullshit because up until this point, nobody had loaded anything onto wristbands. So [00:44:00] them saying that most people load up $3,000 is just a lie. So this is literally just a cash grab.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And I guess, do people do it?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. They raise $800,000 off the back of that.

Adam Cox: The people, they don't even have tables to even reserve this point or activities.

Kyle Risi: as the days go on they get like very little traction on that. Mm-hmm. So they keep setting reminders to load up. They even start getting people in his team to call people asking why they haven't loaded money on sort accounts. And then they'll talk them through how to do it.

Adam Cox: I'll be like, this is a scam.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. so In the end they end up persuading people to load in excess of $800,000 onto these bands. This means that they can finally sell a bunch of debts with laborers and merchants who by this point had stopped working because they hadn't been paid. And they're like literally two weeks out.

Adam Cox: Wow. But this money is not. Gonna cover the food though, is it? This is just covering sa Oh,

Kyle Risi: oh yeah. Billy says that basically he's led by a spreadsheet that his team would maintain, it was basically a list of bills that had to be paid on that day otherwise that meant the end of the [00:45:00] festival.

So he'd come in, in the morning, he'd see how much he had to find by the end of that day, and then literally spend the rest of the day begging people for money just so we could pay those bills by 4:00 PM that day.

Adam Cox: Oh, this is horrible.

Kyle Risi: And that's how he spends his day.

Adam Cox: I couldn't do this.

Kyle Risi: I mean, how stressful must that have been for you? Yeah, he does it every day miraculously. Like he'll come in and he will manage to find like a hundred thousand dollars in one day. The next day the bill is like 4 million. And he'll find the money.

Adam Cox: You gotta commend him for just his, bullshit. Bullshit, yeah. His, his discipline, his tenacity in a way. Yeah. Stupidity. I dunno. Yeah. I don't think we should praise him for that.

Kyle Risi: But here's the issue with the wristband technology, yes, they'd managed to get $800,000 from attendees, but when they finally get to the island, they won't be able to spend that money because the wristbands don't work without internet connection.

Adam Cox: I was just thinking, how is that gonna work without some kind of wifi or Bluetooth

Kyle Risi: and they're a week out and they've not even set that up.

Oh my God. [00:46:00] It also hasn't been a priority up until now to sort out the accommodation for the glamping ticket holders. It's not been a priority. Amazing. And it's because like the assumption is that you can get glamping tents anywhere, right? Turns out you cannot.

Adam Cox: You mean you just can't get, order them from Amazon or something?

Kyle Risi: Nope. So now you have 350 people with nowhere to sleep. So they start scurrying around for anything that they can source from anywhere. In the end, they find a bunch of hurricane disaster relief tents that were left over from Hurricane Matthew earlier that year. And basically these are just white domes with plastic coverings over them.

Adam Cox: Are these already on the island?

Kyle Risi: Possibly they just find like a stockpile of these tents and then they ask if they can buy them or they ask if they can have them probably 'cause they don't have money and that's what they're gonna use.

Adam Cox: Yeah. These don't sound that luxurious if I'm honest. No, they're

Kyle Risi: emergency tents, So comfort is not a priority for anyone. Also it's hot in The Bahamas. Right? So inside these tents they are sweltering. It's not great Adam. It is not great.

[00:47:00] Originally though, they also booked a $6 million catering service through Star Catering. This is this Michelin level catering service to provide all the luxury gourmet food on the island. Across these two weekends. They were gonna be serving authentic island cuisine, local seafood, Bahamian style kind of sushi. They even had like a pig roast

mm-hmm. But at this point Billy doesn't have the Cash start catering. They're pressuring him every day. They're like, we need to start preparing, but we can't do that until we get the money from you. Mm-hmm. But in terms of priorities, star catering is not on that emergency payment column on his spreadsheet.

In the end, Billy just can't make the finances work. So he fires them, which means there's now zero catering for 5,000 people due to come to the island in just a couple weeks.

Adam Cox: Does he go to like the local Aldy or something? I dunno. What does he do?

Kyle Risi: Nope. He finds a little restaurant on the island. It's called the Exhume Point Bar and Grill. It's small scale Adam. It's just one lady who runs the place. Her name is Maryanne Roll, and Billy manages the shit [00:48:00] talker into agreeing to cater the entire festival.

Adam Cox: I bet the most covers she has in a day is probably like 30 or something.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, of course he doesn't have any money to pay her, but she agrees that he can pay her after the festival. Adam, I feel awful.

For this poor woman.

Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause he's manipulated her or taken advantage of her. Yeah. He is

Kyle Risi: taken advantage. 100%. Yeah. He's desperate. It's not an excuse. So basically Maryanne, she spends $50,000 of her own money to buy all the supplies. She hires new staff, she shuts her restaurants in the weeks leading up to this, just so she can prepare.

Adam Cox: She's probably thinking, oh, I can just do this and then I can retire.

Kyle Risi: But also it's a long-term thing. 'cause he's told everyone that this is gonna be like an annual thing, right. And if she does well, she'll get the contract next year as well, and it's only going to scale. So she's really excited.

Yeah, I at this point. Attendees start finalizing their plans for the festival, they know almost nothing Naturally, they start directing all the questions to the FY Media Instagram [00:49:00] accounts. They are asking very reasonable questions like, where am I staying?

Can you please republish the floor plans for the glamping tents that you took down from the website? They're asking how many power outlets will be in them. Can I bring a hair dryer? Will you be supplying one like, sweetie, you have no idea.

Billy tells the social team to just ignore any questions until they can just get things sorted out. Because at this point there's just too many unknowns to give any information. Yeah. They're two weeks out. It's mental, so nobody replies.

Those dms start becoming comments on the posts that they're posting on their Instagram, the social media team then points us out because they're becoming increasingly more and more critical and angry about the experience. So far,

they're told to literally delete any negative messages. Wow. So bad. Eventually the only comments coming through are negative, and so Billy tells them to just shut off all comments altogether.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean, if you were going to this festival [00:50:00] and you had, would you still be going at this point? That's kind of my point. Yeah. Like, because there have been unresponsive, you don't feel confident about it? No, I'd already be going like, I wanna refund.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. At this point, everyone around Billy is telling him to cancel the festival, but for him, Adam, this isn't an option. He's in so much debt to investors. On top of that, he does a festival insurance, which I didn't know was a thing, but it just makes me laugh that he didn't think to get that.

Adam Cox: I'm not surprised to be honest, because he hasn't done anything well so far.

Kyle Risi: No. And basically the festival has to go ahead just so that he can claw back some of the money. Yeah. That is owed to these investors so things are bad, but they're also about to get a hell of a lot worse and also hilarious because Billy had hired a guy called Andy King. Ring any bells? No,

he's much older than everyone else on the team and way more experienced. It's thanks to Andy that they all have their heads above water, just about,

Adam Cox: and so Andy's got experience with organizing festivals, [00:51:00]

Kyle Risi: festivals and events. He's got this right. He's trying to kinda rescue this at this late stage.

At some point a few weeks in, Andy has to leave to go back to the USA for a few days when he gets back, everything has fallen apart miserably. In particular, the shipment of Evian water that was supposed to supply the entire festival is being held by customs until they can come up with $175,000 in order to release the water.

Damn. So they've got no water for this festival. So when Andy gets back billy tells him the situation now. Andy King is a gayman. A gayman. He's a gayman. I've no idea what Intel Billy has on this, but somehow he gets it into his head.

The customs will release the water if someone goes down there and gives the customs guy a blowjob. Oh my God.

Adam Cox: That is going above and beyond that your in your job.

Kyle Risi: Yes. Yes it is. He literally becomes a symbol of that going above and beyond for your workplace. But also it's an [00:52:00] absolute HR catastrophe at this point.

I mean, yeah. Yeah.

At this point, things are so desperate. Everyone is losing their minds. The entire festival is literally on the verge of collapse, and Billy is like, Andy, you need to go and take one for the team and give this guy a suck job.

Adam Cox: I'd be like, sorry, no, Billy, you can do it.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So as he goes back to his apartment, he takes a shower.

Adam Cox: What? I think he needs that afterwards, he goggles the mouthwash. Oh God. And

Kyle Risi: he goes down to the customer's office fully prepared to give this guy a blowjob.

Adam Cox: I'm sorry, this guy is like more experienced. I'm guessing he's more senior, you know, and therefore just a bit wiser. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Risi: And he does this. Yeah. He's fully prepared to do it.

He gets there. The custom's gone. He gets there and the customs guy is like, what's happening? What is going on? I literally just want the money,

Adam Cox: sir, can you, can you stand up please?

Kyle Risi: Eventually he says, so Andy, listen, we'll give you the water. But after the festival, we wanna be at the top of the list to be paid.

So he didn't even need to go down there [00:53:00] and suck him off, but somehow it's just been mistranslated that's what he needed to do.

Adam Cox: Wow. And so how, what was that conversation when they did meet saying, I'm here to, you know, yeah. So I can get the water.

Kyle Risi: He's probably ready on his knees. He just like starts taking his belt off and he gets on his knees. Love's happening. Yeah. So Andy goes back to Fire HQ and he is like, I've got the water, everyone. Nobody asks any questions and, but he's just like, thanks Andy. Geez.

In the Netflix documentary, Andy tells this story in just the most candid way. Like Adam, he was fully prepared, no questions asked to go down there and suck Dick as Bitly puts it, to take one for the team.

Adam Cox: That's awful. I I think that's really like grimy.

Kyle Risi: It is really grimy. But don't feel too sorry for him because after the documentary he becomes a legend. He, he becomes so famous Evon released a limited edition bottle of Evian water in honor of his commitment to the course, which you can go and see on his Instagram.

The slogan's like, Evian, so [00:54:00] good. You'll do anything for it.

Adam Cox: That's a, yeah, bless

Kyle Risi: him. He's really proud of that bottle. The things I had to do for

Adam Cox: this.

Kyle Risi: And in the documentary, he is like, I, I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I was gonna do it.

Adam Cox: Wow. Good for him. Maybe.

Kyle Risi: We've all been there haven't we?

Adam Cox: No we haven't. Kyle.

Kyle Risi: Hey. But also I don't get where Billy even got this idea that this even needs to happen. He's just assuming that everyone wants their dick sucked.

Adam Cox: I reckon Billy's probably done this to pay off a few debts and he is like, this usually works, but

Kyle Risi: takes his earrings out.

Uh, so Adam, it is the evening before the festival. Obviously there are still not ready. Only literally half of the disaster relief tents have been erected at this point, there still needs to be kitted out with lockers, mattresses, bedding, everything. Currently. Everything that should be inside the tents are piled up outside of the tents, and that evening the island is hit with a massive threshold. Downpour. [00:55:00] No, the tents literally collapse inwards. Some are blown across the construction site.

All the mattresses and the beddings that were left outside and now soaking wet, the team are scrambling to get everything back in order before they can even pick up where they're left off the night before.

Adam Cox: I mean that I do, what do I feel? Sorry. No, I don't think I did. I

Kyle Risi: feel sorry for the people coming to the island. I feel sorry for Maryanne.

Adam Cox: Yes. I feel sorry for them, but I'm just thinking what as a catastrophe they didn't need. But equally, yeah. Says 'em right.

Kyle Risi: So meanwhile, first flights from Miami International airports start faring passengers to the island at 6:30 AM that morning when they get to the airport, they're already excited to be born in these private jets to the island.

Instead, they board shitty old planes that they've painted the FY Festival logo on the plane with cheaper critic paints. Right? It's so bad.

Across Instagram, the first set of arrivals, start posting videos of themselves. Boarding onto the plane. They're literally showing how bad the conditions are. [00:56:00] Some of them are saying it's literally worse than coach.

Adam Cox: I would be like, is this safe?

Kyle Risi: Then, while everyone is waiting to take off, it's announced on Instagram that Blink 180 2, the headline Act was actually pulling out saying, unfortunately we are not convinced that we have what we need to put on the kind of quality performance that we would like to

Adam Cox: That's, that's interesting. Quite late in the day that they're pulling out. I guess they must have been told lies

Kyle Risi: Loads of lies. Mm-hmm. One of the attendees said that he was only literally going to the festival because Blink 180 2 were performing.

So he's just furious. But at that point he's already at the airport. So it was either go home now or go do the thing. And so he goes to the thing.

Adam Cox: I guess if you've already loaded up your wristband Yeah. You're like, yeah, well I might as well spend it.

Kyle Risi: After that announcement attendees start panicking that other acts might also pull out. So they start firing off tweets, tagging other artists, asking if they're still going. Those acts are like, what? Like we were never going in the first place, so they have to kind of jump in and do damage control.

Clarifying. [00:57:00] Yes, we discussed coming to the festival, but nothing was ever confirmed. Nobody ever communicated anything to us. No one told us how we were getting there, where we would be staying. We didn't even sign a contract. Nothing was organized.

Adam Cox: Did Billy forget to like actually book the talent? Because I feel like they're like, right, okay, we've got beds, we've got some food sorted right now. What are they gonna do?

Kyle Risi: I think what it was is they'd never finalized the stuff,

Adam Cox: What's Jeffrey doing? Surely he's kind of booking this out. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: Where is Jeffrey? I think he's about, sending people to get into the water. Yeah. In bikini, optional, and obviously for the acts that were booked, seeing all of this fallout, they just end up pulling out too. Mm-hmm. So they've got no acts. It's a catastrophe.

Of course, When attendees do arrive at the island, this is when they realize this is not a private island. There's literally a Sanders resort right next door.

They're all instructed to put all their luggage into these massive container trucks, which means they're now separated from all their stuff, which is fine, because there's probably no space for luggage in the limos. Right, right, guys. Yeah. Limos no space in the limos. Mm-hmm.

Because [00:58:00] it's taken up by all the champagne and the stripper pole. Right. They're told to board a fleet of yellow school buses that they've managed to get from a bunch of schools in the area. Everyone's like, what the fuck?

Adam Cox: Yeah, I feel like all the signs are saying, no. Let me get back on that plane. Let me outta here.

Kyle Risi: So of course they're now arriving. The festival site is still not ready. Billy instructs everyone to be ferry to Maryanne's restaurant on the beach, which is literally on the other side of the island.

She's given 20 minutes notice, literally that thousands of people are about to descend on a restaurant. Oh my God. She has nothing prepared Adam, and that is because the restaurant's not even open. Remember, she had shut so that her team could focus on preparing for the 5,000 people that were going to be attending the festival throughout.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: She's told to just give them whatever they want. That includes food and drink. Remember, nobody's paying for anything. Billy is just like, we'll just settle the bill later. It is bad. Eventually the place is [00:59:00] just inundated with the people. They're out on the hot sun. They have none of their belongings with them, which means that nobody's wearing sunscreen.

Maryanne, all she can do is just fuel people with free alcohol. So everybody's blinding drunk at this point.

Adam, this goes on for six hours.

Adam Cox: I, I dunno. I feel really anxious now. You dunno what to say, do you? Yeah,

Kyle Risi: eventually Billy and the team have no choice. They have to start bringing people to the site. So it's back on the yellow school bus as they go. As they're driving, one of the girls sees all the disaster relief tents in the distance.

And for a serious moment she is like, oh, that's so sad. This shanty town's on this beautiful island. She genuinely thinks that she is driving past poverty to get to the luxury.

Adam Cox: Wow,

Kyle Risi: so bad. Meanwhile, the bus driver, he's literally laughing his head off because he knows exactly where they're going.

Of course, when they get there, they're just in disbelief. One of the guys in the documentary's like, oh, Jesus, like, do we get to burn it [01:00:00] down? In the end,

there's still 10 scattered everywhere. There's rubble concrete. Everywhere you look, mattresses are so piled up, they're soaking wet. They're covered in mud. The Port Lous haven't even been set up at this point, Adam, oh my God. The problem now is the suns going down they've not even sorted out lighting for the festival. So all anyone can do is just stand around and wait as Darkness falls upon them.

Adam Cox: Do you know what they should have pitched this as? Like, have you ever been in like a natural disaster? No. Come here. Like, yeah, I don't think you'd sell that many tickets.

Kyle Risi: So at 8:00 PM trucks start arriving with everyone's luggage, people are told to just grab their bags, which is impossible. In the darkness amongst the sea of a thousand identical Plexus.

You'd like what it is. Carnage. People are literally fighting. One guy says, it was literally like the Hunger Games.

Everyone is then told to just grab a tent. Some people are like, but I paid $200,000. Do I get a better tent or do I get a villa? sweetie. The answer is no. [01:01:00] They're told just we'll sort it all out later. It's just a free for all at this moment in time. Just grab a tent.

But of course, based on what they all saw when they arrived, they know at this moment in time that there's just not enough tents for everyone. So it literally becomes that Lord of the Flies with people getting dangerously territorial over whatever tents they do manage to kind of grab those who find tents, but have wet mattresses. They start robbing the mattresses from the other tents, which now meant that those mattresses are now being dragged through the mud mm-hmm.

Those that do have a decent mattress, Adam. They literally piss on them to stop anyone from robbing them. So they would rather sleep on a pissy mattress than no mattress at all, or a wet mattress.

Adam Cox: No way. I mean, it's, guess if it's your own piss, but still that's what you're, you're marking your territory.

Kyle Risi: Bear in mind, everyone's drunk.

Adam Cox: Oh, and people must be dehydrated. Where are they peeing? What's their And starving.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Crazy. Those who had the sense to get outta there couldn't even call a taxi because a, there's no cell [01:02:00] reception. And even if they could get a hold of a taxi, they can pay for it. 'cause all of their money is on the damn wristband. So they're not even gonna work.

Adam Cox: I'd be looking at that resort going, can, can you that us in? Nope.

Kyle Risi: So through all this carnage, the team are like, all right, we need to feed these people. And so Billy str some more to start handing out the luxury gourmet meals that everyone has been promised. Oh no. And this is when that famous tweet goes viral,

Adam Cox: the cheese sandwich.

Kyle Risi: The cheese sandwich. Do you wanna see a picture of it?

Adam Cox: Yeah. Remind me what it looked like. Oh my god, there's no butter. Oh, it is a cheese slice. I couldn't remember quite what it was. I was a little salad with it.

Kyle Risi: Like the sandwich isn't even assembled though. That's

Adam Cox: It's just they didn't have time to put a piece of bread on another piece of bread. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: They literally just threw all the ingredients for a cheese sandwich in the styrofoam box. And it's like, it's assemble your own sandwich. It's build a sandwich. To be honest, I eat that.

Adam Cox: I mean, if you're hungry,

Kyle Risi: I mean it's Exactly, it's still food. Don't waste it.

Adam Cox: Yeah,

Kyle Risi: but this is the [01:03:00] moment that the whole world kind of sort of just grabs their popcorn and they start watching the flood of tweets and posts that are just coming out of this carnage.

This is kind of where it really explodes. In the documentary, one guy points out that a bunch of very famous models, posting orange tiles on Instagram is essentially what built the entirety of what FY Festival was supposed to be. And then just one kid with a few hundred followers posts a picture of a cheese sandwich and pretty much destroy the entire brand.

Adam Cox: But these models and these influencers, they were obviously lied to, but they've promoted something. Mm-hmm. That doesn't exist. Oh yeah. 100%. They must, people must have been like throwing them some hate.

Kyle Risi: Oh yeah, they do. Kendall Jenner, she gets a lot of backlash for this. In the end, she pays back $90,000 of the money. But the thing is though, she was paid 250,000.

Adam Cox: Yeah. What did she do with the rest?

Kyle Risi: Huh? Exactly. Like, oh yeah, oh, that's really gonna teach me a lesson.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I've already bought a new convertible. So, but at the

Kyle Risi: same time, how are they slow? Either, right?

Adam Cox: True, but almost do your due diligence. But equally, I guess it's, but in

Kyle Risi: what way? It's a brand new [01:04:00] brand that looks promising, making big promises. You trust them. That's all you can do in this world.

Adam Cox: Job rules involved. So I guess, yeah, you've got some element of trust there. I don't think anyone would've thought it would've been this bad.

Kyle Risi: I guess maybe the alarm bells would've been, uh, sorry. How long are you gonna be planning this f uh, eight weeks. Mm. Yeah. Maybe not if you said like, oh, in two years time you'd like, okay, yeah, yeah, that's plenty of time.

But I dunno, maybe they've been too naive, but should Kendall, Jenna and these other influencers who make their money from like, selling their image, should they be that hot up on these types of things?

Adam Cox: I kind of feel like some influencers, but I just feel like out of respect and duty, like, I don't know, but yeah, equally, I don't think they shouldn't get that much hate.

Kyle Risi: I think the amount of hate that Kendall Jenner got out of this was not proportionate.

Adam Cox: No, exactly. 'cause she didn't know it'd be this catastrophic. No,

Kyle Risi: I don't think I don't think believe in you. So how do you expect Kendall to know,

Adam Cox: but what's is he like in this situation? Obviously he's just in survival mode, trying to like get people fed, get [01:05:00] people watered, whatever it might be. But like, is he thinking like, how am I actually gonna make money from this?

Kyle Risi: He is just in survival mode at this moment in time. He just needs to get this off the ground. But also he's backed himself into a corner. Doesn't have any festival insurance. He needs to make some of the money back he's trapped. Basically. It has to go ahead and I think he can sense that it's going to be very messy.

Mm-hmm. He's basically surfing a hope wave. Yeah. And so this becomes a real cluster fuck. From there people, they obviously don't have a place to sleep. They are in total darkness. They are all probably still starving. And now Adam, it is cold.

The only thing literally keeping them warm was the fact that they're all so drunk. So it is literally just a massive mess.

Meanwhile. Billy, he's cowering at the fire media villa where they've all been staying, and so attendees, they start gathering outside the house because they have questions.

Right. Eventually, Billy comes out again, he thinks that he can bullshit his way out of this. He's like, okay, everyone, we're gonna need you to work [01:06:00] with us for a minute. He explains that yesterday there was a torrential downpour that they didn't anticipate and that they just need more time to sort things out.

It's literally 10 o'clock at night. Like, how much more time do you need? We need somewhere to sleep. We're getting ready to settle down for the night. There's not even lighting, there's not even a toilet set up.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's like, we'll sort it out tomorrow. I'm just gonna go back to my bed. Yeah. And uh, exactly.

We'll deal with it in the morning. I have to

Kyle Risi: go home on Sunday.

In the meantime, he's here, have some more boos so he gets a more drunk that lasts around 30 minutes before he comes back out, and he literally just goes. Sorry guys. We're gonna cancel the festival at that point. Yeah, 10 o'clock at night. Nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat. Everyone's drunk. We're canceling the festival, and everyone's like, what does that even mean? Like it is 10 o'clock at night.

Well, Adam, it basically means that everyone's gonna get back onto those yellow buses and they're gonna go straight back to the airport.

Damn, it's so bad.

Meanwhile, all the laborers and [01:07:00] the workers who've been busting their gut for the last six weeks are like, but we're still gonna get paid. Right? They're all getting so riled up to the point that billionaires team are like, we are. In serious danger at this moment in time.

So all the festival go is they go back to the airport. Airport staff have no idea how to kind of manage all these people. This late at night. They're scrambling to try and rearrange flights, which is impossible to get clearance for this short notice. Mm-hmm.

while they wait. Festival goers are constantly in and out of the airport. Nobody can contain them. so they make the decision to lock them in the airport with a literal chain and padlocks around the door. Wow. It's bad.

And this summer of night, all the stores are closed. So they have no access to water, no access to food, Which didn't matter since they had no money anyway, it was all locked onto these wristbands.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I imagine like you, you come to the island and you think, well, do you know what? My money's kind of secure. I don't need to take much more money. Mm-hmm. It's fine. I'm sorted. And you've got nothing. You are now literally a refugee [01:08:00] almost. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So, tweets start flying out that they're all being held hostage. You see pictures of people sleeping in doorways. Loads of people have lost their luggage. There's loads of confusion and carnage in the end, Adam, because of the reach that all these tweets kind of generates. The Bahamian Ministry of Tourism is forced to apologize on behalf of the nation, even though they have nothing to do with this.

They are urging everyone to kind of please bear with them and eventually they finally arrange the first flights to ferry people off the island. This doesn't happen till the next day. Basically.

Meanwhile, back in the Villa Billy and the rest of the team, they're still surrounded by all these workers who are now talking about taking them hostage until they get paid.

Oh, no way. They're in serious danger.

They realize that they cannot stay on the island, but also there's just no way to escape. They are completely surrounded. Andy King, do you remember? Mm-hmm. The guy prepared to suck Dick, so he basically swaps his clothes with someone he manages to hide in the back of a [01:09:00] car. He's able to escape to the airport where he is able to just get the hell out of there. So I'm glad. I'm glad for him.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: He didn't cause this mess. He's just doing, he's trying to rescue it, basically.

Adam Cox: Trying to rescue it. But I dunno. I feel like he should have just like called it. He should have got involved in the first place.

Kyle Risi: Billy. Meanwhile, he doesn't have time to plan escape for himself. He's getting all these calls from investors that are demanding an explanation. Steven Star's Catering company wants to know why a shitty cheese sandwich has been accredited to them.

Journalists want comment, Adam, it's intense.

Eventually he puts out a statement saying that the rain had obviously, unfortunately put a damper on what was otherwise expected to be an incredible event. Mm-hmm. And as a result, his team were forced to kind of cancel the festival like it's a festival.

If it can't handle a little bit of rain, then something seriously is going wrong, right? Mm-hmm. he says, don't worry. Next year's festival is gonna be incredible.

Adam Cox: Uh

Kyle Risi: So he's planning five festival [01:10:00] two but to be fair, can you really call a Fire Festival two? 'cause there hasn't even really been a FY Festival one.

Adam Cox: It was basically a day out

Kyle Risi: day, day

Adam Cox: out, I mean a terrible day out, but a day out,

Kyle Risi: he gives attendees a choice between either a full refund or VIP ticket access to next year's festival. I would love to know how many people actually take that latter option. I was like, oh, this sounds like a good idea. Yeah,

Adam Cox: count me in.

Kyle Risi: Of course, throughout all the tweets and the Instagram posts, this whole thing just grows into this viral kind of sensation. Everyone is just making fun of it. But Adam, there is a sad part to this because at the heart of all of this is a pretty huge tragedy, especially for the people that he had employed.

Mm-hmm. Remember Marianne Roll, right? Yeah. That was the local who he conned into doing their catering for these 5,000 people. All that food has now gone to waste. And she was never paid for this. Remember, she had spent $5,000 of her own money She employed 10 staff to work 24 hours a day and then just say, everyone fucked off.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: It's [01:11:00] horrible.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And that's just her, all the other people that are involved.

We're laughing and saying, yeah, it's really funny that he thinks he can put on another festival the following year, but then all these people that are just out of pocket because of him and he think it's no big deal.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. He doesn't seem to have remorse. He's a bit of a psychopath. Also the saddest part when it comes to Marianne is that he, shit talked her into believing that this was gonna be an annual thing. Like she pulled out all the stops and in the end she was left financially ruined by this. It's literally not until after the documentary is released where people really take to a story, someone ends up setting up like a GoFundMe where they raise $140,000 for her, which is at least a little bit of good news to come out of the shit show.

But the thing is though, if that documentary hadn't been made, she would be ruined.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And like how much did she spend, was that 150,000 that she spent? She spent

Kyle Risi: $50,000. So she's a little bit in, in pocket basically.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But probably all the stress and everything else, it still doesn't really cover it.

Kyle Risi: But also Adam, let's not forget that the [01:12:00] entire reason for this festival in the first place was remote an app. Oh yeah,

Adam Cox: Did anyone even talk about the app? All the people were talking about was the cheesy sandwich.

Kyle Risi: The, the app was supposed to be central to the entire festival. Mm-hmm. I didn't hear any talk of billboards or marketing material or leaflets or, yeah, nothing. None of it. I wouldn't be trusting this app.

Adam Cox: No.

Kyle Risi: So of course there's our whole team back in the USA working on this talent booking app.

Billy basically comes into the office and says, we're not firing anyone, but we cannot pay anyone in the short term. And the like, what the hell does that even mean? If you won't fire us and you won't pay us, then that means that you're trying to force us to quit.

And Billy's like, I dunno what to say. You're being too negative.

Adam Cox: God.

Kyle Risi: But they're like, but if we quit, we then won't be eligible for unemployment benefits.

Adam Cox: Damn, can you not just like take another job, I guess then you're unemployment. You could if you've got

Kyle Risi: one, but if you're like, what's the point in staying there and working if you're not gonna get paid? [01:13:00] But if you quit, then you don't get this unemployment benefit. It's bad.

Adam Cox: They're screwed essentially. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So in the aftermath, of course the FBI start investigating and they discovered that Billy was essentially embroiled in a big fat Ponzi scheme where he was using money from new investors to pay off all the debts.

He also apparently lied about the value of the business and he was taking loans of like 120% interest, which means that he was constantly having to chase his tail just to pay off those investors. And also the interest and things like that, that were mounting up.

Eventually the FBI, they bring a hundred million dollars lawsuits against Billy McFarland and Jeffrey. Yes. We forgot about Jeffrey for a second. Mm-hmm. But by some miracle, Jeffrey manages to argue that he was just one of Billy McFarland's victims in all of this.

Adam Cox: Really? But I thought he was way more heavily involved.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, he was on all the press conferences. He was on all the, the media tours, everything. He was one of the main orchestrators behind the promotional video. So it's just bullshit,

Adam Cox: But then was he just a bit of a show pony that was wheeled out to talk about it, hype it up, but didn't really get involved with the nitty gritty?

Kyle Risi: [01:14:00] No, I don't. I don't know, but I don't get the sense of that. He was very much a key player in this, but in the end he was like, I had no idea. I'm just a victim. Mm. He probably set up his own GoFundMe. but he does manage to argue his way out of this, and eventually the lawsuit is dropped against him.

So it's just Billy that's on the line. The lawsuit alleged fraud, breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith, partly due to the inadequate catering, but also the incident where attendees were literally locked in the airport and kept hostage .

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's a pretty serious offense.

Kyle Risi: the main crux was the negligent misrepresentation, Pablo Escobar Island, the villas, the glamping tents, which ended up being disaster relief tents, all the artists that were said to be attending, it was all misrepresented.

Right. Private individuals start also bringing their own lawsuits, including a class action on behalf of 270 70 attendees, who in the end, they're all awarded like $7,000 each. So good for them, I guess.

eventually in court Billy plead guilty on two [01:15:00] counts of wire fraud. He admits to using fake documents to attract investors. And in the end, he's literally ordered to pay back more than $26 million in restitution. Damn. A lot of money, eh?

Adam Cox: And I bet he doesn't.

I just know that this is the kind of person that will probably get away with it.

Kyle Risi: He has no choice, if he's gonna continue trying to make money mm-hmm. A portion of that money has to go towards restitution. That is law, he will dress this up as him doing a noble thing. He'll be like, guys, I'm paying someone the money back in restitution. I'm paying back sometimes even more than I'm supposed to every month. it, it is just bullshit. He has to do that. If he's earning money, then he's mandated.

But Adam, that is where that basketball bouncing metaphor hits the ground. Yet again in the story of Billy McFarland, because while he's out on bail, the bounce goes again and he starts up another scam.

He creates a company called N-Y-C-V-I-P Access, where he starts selling tickets to various kind of exclusive [01:16:00] events like Coachella, but also the Met Gala, which isn't even a ticket event. This is an event where Anna Winter sends you out a personal invite

But what irks me the most is that these are all very obvious scams, right? his image at this moment in time is everywhere. People in the know know that anything to do with Billy McFarland is likely dodgy. So he's targeting people who either don't know who he is or already dumb, but when it comes to these tickets, right?

These are largely tourists from other countries who are coming to visit and they go, you know what? I'd like to go to the ME gala. I didn't know it was a ticket event. Let me buy a ticket from them. Or, oh, I'm traveling from Europe, and I want to go to Coachella because you see it all over Instagram.

Let me go there and they'll buy these tickets, and they all end up being fake.

Adam Cox: But how did he get away with

Kyle Risi: this?

He just can't stop scamming people. even in the Netflix documentary, he's so brazen about it that there's footage of him awaiting his sentence. He's at his computer selling fake tickets. Like he has people documenting the supposed meteoric rise. And to him, all of [01:17:00] this is just a tiny little blimp on the bigger picture. Basically.

In October, 2018, he's eventually sentenced to six years in federal prison.

He serves less than four years. He's eventually released in March, 2022, and he is now forced to start making arrangements to pay back their $26 million, which is another thing that irks me, because every time he wiggles out of the woodwork with another scam, his main selling point, is that every time you give him money, he is committed to paying off a percentage of their $26 million, which makes me sick that he's dressing it up as a noble thing. Mm-hmm. Like you ripped a bunch of people off, you're not doing a good deed. You are doing what is mandated by law.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: But also in saying that, he's literally admitting that he's a scam artist. And yet he frames this as a noble thing. I just don't understand why people don't see through that.

So, Adam, he's free. What do you think Billy does now

Adam Cox: sets up another scam?

Kyle Risi: Well, true to his word. In April, 2023, Billy announces on [01:18:00] Twitter. That it was finally happening. Fyre Festival two.

Adam Cox: Really? Mm-hmm. It goes ahead with it.

Kyle Risi: It's scheduled to run between May the 30th to June the second 2025. So this year, this time is gonna be more small scale He sells a hundred tickets for $500 a pop. Unbelievably, they sell out almost immediately.

Adam Cox: Is it? 'cause people just want to be part of this psych heist or whatever it's,

Kyle Risi: yeah. I don't know. Are people buying these? Ironically, but nevertheless, like they all sell out

Adam Cox: crazy.

Kyle Risi: But even at this point that the ticket has gone on sale, there is no music lineup.

There's no date. They don't even have a venue Just like before he was trying to scout around for a new island.

But he's rejected by every single one of them. Eventually. He lands on an island off the coast of Mexico. Apparently.

Of course, journalists start digging into this to see where the island actually is. They managed to get hold of the exact coordinates of the secret elusive Mexican island

when they click on the coordinates, it's [01:19:00] literally just a random spot in the middle of the ocean.

Adam Cox: What? It has nothing there. So this was earlier this year.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

He's eventually forced to disclose where the actual island was. But the local government that owned or governed the island were like, we've never met Billy. We've never talked to him, and we know nothing about any festival that's due to take place in 2025.

Right? So even with that, he starts offering a new Ticketer this time for $1,400. Somehow they sell as well, even after it had been exposed that he's not spoken to anyone in the government. He's got no lineup, there's no music, nothing.

He even then starts offering a premium, premium, super top tier tickets for $1.1 million, which he calls.

Real tickets.

Adam Cox: Real tickets,

yeah. What does that mean for the other two tiers? I don't get it. What? Please don't tell me he actually sells any of them.

Kyle Risi: I don't know if he does. I couldn't find any evidence that he sold any of the top tier tickets.

Adam Cox: And you say they were sold out, but were they, I just wonder if it's kind of his own [01:20:00] hype or marketing behind it.

Kyle Risi: Possibly It could be bullshitting. Yeah.

Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Risi: It just bogs my mind though. I don't wanna say it, but this is testament to how idiotic people can be for falling for this if they did buy those tickets. Do you know what I mean?

Adam Cox: I guess maybe some people that, I dunno, have enough disposable income that like they do it and they'll just see what happens. Like, yes. Like ironic. Yeah. They can post it on their Instagram. They can tell people that they went to another catastrophe. But it sounds like we would, it didn't happen.

It couldn't have happened. Right.

Kyle Risi: So in April, 2025. Just two months before FY Festival two was due to take place, Adam Billy releases a statement saying the festival is gonna be postponed indefinitely. Right. So it didn't happen, unfortunately.

Adam Cox: And so the people that bought the ticket,

Kyle Risi: He's probably going oh, we will hold it. Eventually your ticket will roll over.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Like it just feels like he's just conning more people to pay out one his debts or paying back something else. This guy should just not be allowed to do business.

Kyle Risi: He then decides that he's gonna list the entire FY Media brand, [01:21:00] including all the trademarks, the social media accounts, all their merch, everything. for sale on eBay, eBay. it's literally just a last ditch effort to milk the scam, basically. Mm-hmm. He says officially that the brand had become too big for him to lead on his own.

Adam Cox: Too big.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. What, what even is the brand? I think it's just notoriety.

I think that's pretty much it. He creates a huge amount of buzz around the sale. He sets up a live stream for the actual auction, and on the night the winning bid is $245,300.

Billy is gutted in the live stream. You literally hear him say, damn, it's so low. He's really gutted. He thought it was worth way more.

Adam Cox: Yeah. So who would've bought that? I guess you could turn that into some kind of ironic brand for me, or so something. It's

Kyle Risi: a nice brand. Who knows? He then posts on social media. That FY Festival is just one chapter in my story, and I'm excited to move on to the next one. And with that, the basketball hit the ground, and I'm afraid to say it's probably not for the last [01:22:00] time. I think there's a few more bouncers left in him.

Adam Cox: I imagine he is gonna like turn up doing something else.

Kyle Risi: Unfortunately it is pathetic. It's sad, but also a tragic comedy in a way.

Adam Cox: Like I have to hand it to him in some ways to have all those people probably like pestering him or wanting answers money. Mm-hmm. Like he must be able to work well under pressure,

Kyle Risi: I couldn't do it, I don't think.

Adam Cox: No.

So well done in a way, but yeah, you are a bit of a piece of shit.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Major piece of shit.

And Adam, that is the story of Fire Festival.

Adam Cox: Wow. That was a wild ride.

Kyle Risi: Mm. But it's so crazy, like from that era in time, you've got Elizabeth Holmes, you've got Anna Delvy, and now you've got Billy McFarland.

They all seem to be cut from almost the same kind of cloth. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? From the same era. What is it about con

Adam Cox: artists of 2010s.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's it. They seem to all rhyme with each other. They all seem to kind of have the same outlook, the same entitlement. What is that about?

Adam Cox: I think it is, maybe it is that [01:23:00] kind of thing that, like we talked about at the beginning, the fake it to make it and. For some people they can make it. So I understand it's a principle, but when you've at that kind of scale. Mm-hmm. So if Elizabeth Holmes, it was about people's health that she was playing around with. Yeah. This guy, he just wasn't planning very well at all.

No. If he actually perhaps planned the event two years in advance, then maybe he could have bill it off maybe.

Yeah. Because people were interested in his concept. And his marketing was good that Yeah. His ideas. And he was also great at raising money. Exactly. So there's a lot of good, but he, these people just need better people around them to steer them, I think. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And that's the thing. I think there's the entitlement, there's the arrogance there.

It's the I know better. Mm. When you are discounting the years and years of experience of the other people around you. Like he is very good as a salesman. He had some really good ideas. He's just not very good at the execution. Like with Magnises, it was a good idea, but he turned it into a scam because he was mismanaging the entire business because it was just [01:24:00] him running it.

He's not very good at doing the thing. Do you know? He's good at coming up with the idea, but he's not very good at physically doing the thing.

Like when it comes to being a CEO, like Steve Jobs was famous for this, right? He was like, oh, well I'm not the best coder, I'm not the best engineer. I'm none of these things. But what I am really good at is bringing the right people together in order to execute an initiative.

Fascinating story. But I am really gutted that, I wasn't aware that FY Festival was happening earlier this year. I only recently found out about it.

Adam Cox: I imagine it perhaps didn't have quite the same hype.

Kyle Risi: No, that's the thing though, like with the metaphor, with the basketball, with each bouncer comes after that. It's a little bit lower Mm. Before it just dribbles out. Hopefully he's at the dribble bit and any new scam that he comes up with now is just gonna be not very wide hitting. Not many victims. Hopefully. I think, hopefully people now know that he's

Adam Cox: stay clear, although he needs to pay back some money, so he needs to find some job at McDonald's.

Kyle Risi: True. I just hope the regular civilians that he defrauded, [01:25:00] get their money back. But they're probably really far down on the list of who gets their payments first. It's probably gonna be the big businesses mm-hmm. Shame. But yeah. Should we run the out of this week?

Let's do it.

So that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did,

Adam Cox: and if today's episode sparks your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget that next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon, and it is completely free to access.

Adam Cox: And if you want, even more than join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content, get a sneak peek at what's coming next. We'd love for you to be part of our growing community.

Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday. And until then, remember, the grandest promises can crumble faster than tents on sand.

See you next time.

See you.

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