Fyre Festival 2 is Off to a Brilliant Start as the Island Allegedly Hosting it Calls it 'an Event That Does Not Exist'

We live in an age that is over-saturated with documentaries. So they end up being pretty disposable. So for instance, four and a half years ago we might have all been obsessing over Tiger King, but honestly when was the last time you gave it more than two seconds thought. Then there was that one about the McDonald's Monopoly scam. Those more recent series about the creeps who were running Nickelodeon or the crime-ridden disaster that was Woodstock '99. Sure, you learn a few things and remember some of the details, but most of it is forgotten within weeks. 

The Fyre Festival documentaries were different. They stand alone, above the crowd of weirdo toothless hillbillies, fast food contests, pedos and concerts based on Peace and Love in the age of Girls Gone Wild. All the proof we need about how special those docs were is the fact they put that shambolic ripoff into the lexicon. They made it so anytime something went horribly, horribly wrong, you could call it, "The Fyre Festival of [fill in the blank]."

Not to mention the instant fame that Andy King achieved:

Well organizer Bill McFarland isn't about to let a little thing like being an international laughingstock and four years in prison stop him from making his dream of Fyre Festival come true. Last week he talked about it on The Today Show as if he's not a convicted con artist and the kind of guy who'd make one of his employees blow a guy for bottled water:

And while it's just one man's opinion, I respect the hustle. It takes certain degree of persistence to go right back to the very thing that made you infamous. Most people who ran a scam that went totally tits up, left the paying customers who put their faith in him stranded in a dangerous situation, and forever exposed him as a grifter and convicted criminal would just go off somewhere and fade back into the obscurity he came from. They'd try to hide their shame, disassociate themselves from the shambolic mess they made, and hope it never comes up again. 

But not Billy. He's the kind of guy who believes in himself, and isn't about to let reality tell him otherwise.

Why anyone else would trust him this time around is another story entirely. But then again, ever since there have been scammers, there have been people determined to get scammed. Whether it's buying a miracle cure out of the back of a covered wagon, answering emails from a Nigerian prince, or paying thousands to go an island to watch Blink-182 and Migos with Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski, it's all just a matter of degrees. 

But the difference between the people who paid up for Fyre Festival and the ones ready to trust Fyre Festival 2 is that in 2017, they had to show up before they realized they'd been had. This new group of suckers - if there are any - have all the fair warning anyone could ask for. From past history, as well as the people who run the island this one is supposed to be held:

The Guardian - When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week, there was just one concrete detail: it would take place on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico.

But the festival seems to be repeating its own history as an improvised disaster after the local government in Isla Mujeres denied knowing anything about it.

“We have no knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it,” Edgar Gasca, from the tourism directorate of Isla Mujeres, told the Guardian.

 

“For us, this is an event that does not exist.” …

Gasca was … with other officials from Isla Mujeres when they were blindsided by the Fyre festival announcement … and that none of them had heard about the festival.

Impression Isla Mujeres, one of the luxury hotels at which Fyre promised accommodation, told the Guardian it had not received “any approach or enquiry with regards to the event” and that they were investigating it.

In a public audience this morning, Atenea Gómez Ricalde, municipal president of Isla Mujeres, said she knew nothing more about the festival than what was online. …

“The organisers didn’t even bother to approach the authorities,” said Gasca. “It’s very strange, because any manager knows that if you’re going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need municipal authorisation.

Let's do the numbers here. So we've got Edgar Gasca from the tourism directorate, other Isla Mujeres officials, the hotel's management, and municipal president of the island Atenea Gomez Ricalde. And none of them have heard word one about this thing. All seemingly reasonable people who deal with tourism requests on their idyllic island paradise all the time. And not one has been contacted by the organizers of the most notorious con of the 21st century. Not even to so much as pull a permit to throw a party or see if any rooms are available. Incredible. 

I'm going to be honest with you. I'm hoping McFarland and his crew get some customers. It's not a good quality to have. I'm not proud of myself. It's not being a good Christian. But if someone is going to be this brazen and still succeed at separating imbeciles from considerable amounts of their money, I'm kind of for it. Just as a social experiment, if nothing else. Let's find out exactly how many idiots will willingly walk into this trap a second time, despite every warning sign anyone could ever hope for. I want to see if optimism can triumph over experience. So while I hate myself for saying it: Good luck, McFarland.