Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland just sold the brand for $245,000. He still owes his victims $26 million.

Business Insider

5 days ago

Billy McFarland, the founder and CEO of the Fyre Festival, said on Tuesday that he has sold the branding rights for the infamous event.
McFarland, 33, wrote in a statement on X that he had auctioned off the Fyre Festival's brand and intellectual property on eBay. He added that the auction was the "most-watched non-charity listing on eBay."
McFarland's listing received 175 bids and was ultimately sold for $245,300, per its eBay auction page. He said in his statement that he looked forward to working with the buyer to "finalize the sale."
"Fyre Festival is just one chapter of my story, and I'm excited to move onto my next one," McFarland said in his statement.
McFarland also teased his next venture, "a tech platform designed to capture and power the value behind every view online." He did not elaborate further but said the project would be "coming soon."
Earlier, McFarland had expressed disappointment at the final sale price.
"Damn. This sucks, it's so low," he said in a livestream on Tuesday, per NBC News.
McFarland had gained notoriety following the failure of the Fyre Festival back in 2017. McFarland had marketed the event as a luxury music festival in the Bahamas.
McFarland managed to raise over $26 million from investors and recruited influencers like Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber to promote the event. He ended up selling over 5,000 tickets, some of which went up to $75,000.
But McFarland's customers were in for a rude shock when they arrived at the Bahamas in April 2017. What was supposed to look like paradise ended up resembling a disaster drill.
Disaster relief tents from FEMA replaced the villas they were promised. Instead of gourmet meals, customers were served cheese sandwiches and salads. Bahamian locals who worked as the event's caterers and laborers said they did not receive their salaries.
In 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud related to the festival and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $26 million to investors, concert-goers, and vendors.
McFarland was released from prison early in March 2022. He apologized for his actions during an interview with Good Morning America in November 2022, saying that what he did was "wrong" and "bad."
"I let people down. I let down employees. I let down their families. I let down investors. So I need to apologize," McFarland said.
McFarland, however, was not done with the Fyre Festival just yet. In April 2023, he wrote in a now-deleted post on X that a sequel to the Fyre Festival was " finally happening."
McFarland initially announced in February that Fyre Festival 2 would take place on Isla Mujeres, a Mexican island. The location was later changed to another Mexican tourist hot spot, Playa del Carmen, after the Isla Mujeres government said it had "no knowledge of this event."
In April, the event's organizers said the festival would not be held at Playa del Carmen either. The organizers said in a statement to The New York Times published on April 16 that the event was "still on" and they were "vetting new locations."
That changed again on April 23, when McFarland said in a statement on Instagram that he was selling the brand rights to the Fyre Festival.
"For Fyre Festival 2 to succeed, it's clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently," McFarland said.