People worked for months. They were never paid. It really ruined some people.
Almost a year ago,
attendees spent thousands of dollars for what they thought would be a luxury music festival in the Bahamas
What they found is more like a refugee camp with an EDM DJ.
But the well-heeled college kids weren't the only ones affected by the scam
Festival employees and contractors, like artist Darrell Thorne, who was hired as a performer, weren't just there for a good time
They were counting on a paycheck. And for many of them the effects are still being felt
I turned down at least three
Very exciting projects to commit to the Fyre Festival and worked with them. I've worked on it for probably two months
I made 12 new head pieces
And I shipped 36 to the Bahamas.
So, these three here are actually left over from Fyre Festival
I worked at Beth Israel as a practice manager of head and neck cancer
And they have these thermoplastic masks. They're used for patients with head and neck cancer
I was like this is incredible as a material for costume and
essentially almost everything that I make now is made on those.
"There you are, with your glasses!" *laughs* "That's so cool! I love it, actually."
I was, of course, in communication with people at Fyre Festival, who were there on site,
And they continued to tell me everything's great and there was no sign that anything was amiss
Got off the plane in the Bahamas. Wonderful, beautiful, sun, Hooray! ...all your luggage has been lost
*laughs* That was the first moment we get off the plane
I don't want to say a war zone because that's what people were saying I thought, "Oh, you
namby-pambies". It wasn't a war zone, but it was a crowd of
Frantically freaked out
wealthy people who wanted to party and it was not going down.
" All the resorts nearby are sold out. It's an actual disaster."
They're hungry, they're sleeping on a wet mattress. And many of them pop their acid right when the plane landed
thinking as we did, "Oh yes
we're in paradise!" And that acid kicks in and then you are in some other reality
I'm so desperate looking for transportation and trying to get us food. There was a van parked at this home
I literally tried to break in and steal a van which is horrible.
And I thought in retrospect probably some kind of weird
racist nonsense, like I think I can just come in the Bahamas and steal someone's van.
I'm walking around all the grounds trying to find my costumes. Everything had been seized because the Fyre Festival hadn't paid
anybody anything. I had to stay about 8 days in order to finally get my costumes back
Find shipping to get them off of the island. You know at this point the Fyre Festival owes me something like
$24,000 which I'm not that optimistic that I will ever see.
Darrell is one of many contractors and concert goers who is filed with a bankruptcy judge overseeing the Fyre Festival's dissolution
But bankruptcy cases can take years to be resolved and it's never guaranteed that creditors will actually get their money back
At the time it was very challenging, but I found some connections with some lovely locals who helped me out
What I experienced was nothing compared to the locals
Some locals in Exuma who provided the festival with services are still owed more than a hundred thousand dollars by the festival's organizers
But litigating from a foreign country is often too expensive to be a logical course of action
According to Exuma's Chamber of Commerce, it's unlikely these locals will ever recover their investments.
Fyre Festival's organizers, 2000's hitmaker Ja Rule and entrepreneur Billy McFarland, were slapped with a hundred million dollar lawsuit
Ja Rule's attorney says his client would never participate in anything fraudulent. It is simply not in his DNA
This March MacFarlane pleaded guilty to fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison
*sighs* "Oh my god."
For Darrell Thorne the threat of not making his money back hasn't stopped him from finding success
Tonight is his first solo show featuring over 70 masks he's created
Following the festival, I mean, of course there was a lot of, kind of, emotional fallout, and disappointment, and frustration
But also, like, a resolve. Like, "You know what, I'm gonna be fine." It really feels like, I don't know, a new
chapter is is unfolding now