For whatever reason, Fyre Festival 2 is happening.
If you want to go (hey, this time it’s on you), you can now grab your very own ticket for a concert that is for sure not going to be canceled.
The festival’s promoter, Billy McFarland — who pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced in October 2018 to six years in federal prison as a result of the original botched Fyre Festival — announced Sunday that the new festival’s sequence would be coming soon.
“This is a big day because, as of right now, Fyre Festival 2 tickets are officially on sale,” he said in a TikTok video. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during the seven-month stint in solitary confinement.”
McFarland was placed in solitary in 2020 after participating in a podcast while imprisoned, according to the New York Times. He was released early from prison in May 2022 and was held under house arrest until last September. McFarland was also at the center of two separate documentaries produced by Netflix and Hulu in 2019.
The 31-year-old said he mapped out a “50-page plan” of how he would capitalize on people’s interest for the original festival in order to “make the impossible happen” (a.k.a., bring Fyre Festival 2 to life).
“Ultimately, we decided that Fyre Festival 2 is coming back to the Caribbean,” McFarland continued in the video. “We are targeting Fyre Festival 2 for the end of next year and, in the meantime, we will be doing pop-ups and events across the world.”
The announcement of the revived festival, currently advertised as happening Dec. 6, 2024, should not come as a surprise to those who have followed McFarland since his prison release. In April, he wrote in an X post, “Fyre Festival II is finally happening.”
The original Fyre Festival, which was co-founded by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, infamously became a viral sensation after it launched with a glamorous promotional video that featured models Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski frolicking on the clear blue shores of a remote, private island “once owned by Pablo Escobar,” popping bottles of bubbly on yachts and wearing barely-there bikinis.
The January 2017 video was shared by dozens of social media influencers, including Kendall Jenner, and inspired a handful of FOMO-crazed youths to shell out thousands for the promise of private jet rides, a million-dollar treasure hunt on the beach and alcohol-stocked seaside villas.
Blink-182, Pusha T and Major Lazer were among the many high-profile artists that were promoted on the famously canceled festival’s lineup.
Once the festival began, it again went viral, for distinctly less-glamorous reasons including unfinished infrastructure and canceled talent. Suffice it to say, McFarland overpromised and under-delivered. Lawsuits against him quickly followed, as did prosecution.
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