fyre festival is going well

Hey, Whiney (or rather one of his writers) got some goods:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/fyre-fest-head-billy-mcfarland-we-were-a-little-naive-w479502

Today is definitely the toughest day of my life. I'd love the opportunity to go through and tell my story of how we got here and how I see it now and where it's going.

I was a computer programmer, and after computers, the two things I love most are the ocean and, for some reason, rap music.

Trying to imagine who's the best voiceover for this.

Stuart Smalley

Once we got flying lessons together, we got on these really bad 40-year-old planes and flew from New York to the Bahamas – not really knowing the Bahamas very well – ran out of gas and landed in the Exumas and both of us immediately fell in love.

Sadly, not with each other.

I mean:

We started this website and launched this festival marketing campaign. Our festival became a real thing and took (on) a life of its own. Our next step was to book the talent and actually make the music festival.

He seems to be blaming everything on the weather. First I heard of that being an issue.

Love how much he tries to cram in to the final paragraph:

There will be make-up dates, May 2018 in the U.S., free for everybody who signed up for this festival. We will donate $1.50 (per ticket) to the Bahamian Red Cross. It'll keep the theme of being on water and beach. It'll be not just music, but all forms of entertainment. The one change we will make is we will not try to do it ourselves. We will make sure there is infrastructure in place to support us.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html

Separate RS story had this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/fyre-fest-attendee-it-was-just-a-nightmare-w479493

Some who helped organize the festival took issue with the "out of our control" portion of the festival's statement. In early March, former Saturday Night Live talent associate Chloe Gordon traveled to the Bahamas to tour the site as a producer hired to work with the talent. "It was about two months out, and it was a mess," she says, adding that she quit after returning to New York. "They had already, when we got down there, hired and fired two full production teams. And they hadn't started planning anything. They basically just fired everyone along the way that told them it wasn't feasible."

He seems to be blaming everything on the weather

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/questions-about-the-bermuda-triangle-have-a-weather-explanation/

xpost with Malcolm's post there -- same person.

" They basically just fired everyone along the way that told them it wasn't feasible."

beautiful

This bit from the Gordon story says it all (and underscores my frat party comment):

On Wednesday, Ja Rule arrived for a “site visit.” I don’t know if he actually visited the “site” but he did spend a lot of time on a yacht, according to his Instagram. Meanwhile the event planners were holed up indoors putting together a game plan and a budget. With so little having been prepared ahead of time, the official verdict was that it would take $50 million to pull off. Planners also warned that it would be not be up to the standard they had advertised. The best idea, they said, would be to roll everyone’s tickets over to 2018 and start planning for the next year immediately. They had a meeting with the Fyre execs to deliver the news. A guy from the marketing team said, “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”

Oh damn, the following paragraph is even better:

At this point it was pretty clear that this was a mess and I shared my concerns with the man I reported to. But he assured me that the Fyre execs were legit, and said some socialite was underwriting the whole thing. The budget was okayed and we were told to carry on with our planning. That night Ja Rule gave a toast. “To living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and fucking like porn stars.” If Ja Rule is punished for anything perhaps it should be that.

let's just do it and be legends, man

I kind of pooh-poohed the experience stuff when I first got here. But this shit is hard.

it's weird it's like i've seen this story before

Take a crap, get drunk, put a festival, let's just do it.

and in that, they will succeed xxp

do you think they had the intelligence to do any legal work and have liability waivers or anything else? because there's no way this isn't a legal mess

Oh my god, the coup de grace at the end of the Gordon piece:

I cannot explain how or why the bros running this festival ignored every warning sign they were given along the way. The writing was on the wall. I saw it firsthand six weeks ago. They overlooked so many very basic things. And baby, they forgot to make me sign an NDA.

NAME NAMES

Thank you for my new display name, based fyre lyre lords

it's really good, but let's just do it and be legends, bro would have been all-time

I think we can all agree that putting on a music festival is tough and takes a lot of bravery and strength

do you think they had the intelligence to do any legal work and have liability waivers or anything else? because there's no way this isn't a legal mess

― a landlocked exclave (mh), Friday, April 28, 2017 6:38 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently not to do NDAs!

related lols from a friend on FB:

Because of my job at the opera people are always asking me to be involved in some "edgey, culturally inclusive theatre project in an abandoned church in the lower 9th ward that's been flooded in Katrina" and then they talk for an hour about the voices of the oppressed and the ancestors etc etc. and when they are finished I ask them some questions. Like:
1 is there electricity?
2 do you know where to get a silent generator
3 have you inquired unit the city about permits?
4 do you have a dressing room for the performers?
5 do you have water for the performers playing the oppressed people?
6 do you have food for the performers?
7 do you have a lighting designer?
8 do you have lightning?
9 do you have stage hands? Will they be union or ?
10 how much are you paying the stagehands?
11 how much are you paying the performers? Or do oppressed people even have to be paid?
12 will you have beverages for the audience?
13 how will you keep that cold?
14 will you need a sound system ?
15 who will be the sound man? How much will you pay him or her?
16 will there be parking?
17 will there be security?
18 are there functioning bathrooms? Or will you have to get pot o' gold?
19 what if it rains.
20 do you have insurance ?

And then, after a few moments of them looking at me blankly, I say I have to go to the bathroom and I walk away

cocaine is a hell of a drug

so the anecdote about the organizers urging people to load money onto their payment bracelet things as soon as they arrived... so they had no money to pay people to continue setting up the grounds, did they?

fyre festival seemed like a pretty good plan, cruise some chicks and get a suntan

“Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”

http://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0-12/18217202_10154270266941008_1191031535_n.png?oh=6f8876652e5a8e8c9161cdfede67dc1d&oe=590701F5

Many many xposts but I guess Daniel Cowel played for an hour before the Bahamian government pulled the plug. Not sure that anybody else made it to the island. I think Lee Burridge was supposed to play next and got stuck in Miami.

i finally figured out what this reminded me of:

https://tstotopix.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/kampkrusty.jpg

juggalos are the last american subculture

https://twitter.com/kioskmage/status/858224106864492544

the photo of the idiot at the top of the RS story says it all

We will donate $1.50 (per ticket) to the Bahamian Red Cross

this is the funniest, lamest part

There was that Twitter thread from earlier that started out like "okay let's just clear up a few misconceptions" & basically amounted to "um hello it was actually only FIVE grand for some tiers and this one kid told me he saved up for ages" and I'm like

https://pghgurl.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/congrats-youre-an-idiot.jpg

i dunno, regardless of the fact those attending may be idiots or people unlike myself, i still think the blame goes on the organisers. it is dangerous and they made a lot of money out of it.

http://img.wennermedia.com/article-leads-horizontal/rs-billy-mcfarland-qa-6c4ef770-ddca-447d-af16-f9e6d048a2d2.jpg

i dunno, he looks like a trustworthy, level-headed person

I don't blame rich idiot marks for being suckers but I reserve the right to lol @ them

it would be cool if you could just create a website and marketing campaign and a music festival would just happen. it would be magical!

some dare to dream

The fact that these were the same tents as a refugee camp was a running joke

this is the fucking heart music right here

All of our institutions are crumbling!

The notebook ...
https://twitter.com/WNFIV/status/857826106237497344

I love that notebook.

On Wednesday, Ja Rule arrived for a “site visit.” I don’t know if he actually visited the “site” but he did spend a lot of time on a yacht, according to his Instagram. Meanwhile the event planners were holed up indoors putting together a game plan and a budget. With so little having been prepared ahead of time, the official verdict was that it would take $50 million to pull off. Planners also warned that it would be not be up to the standard they had advertised. The best idea, they said, would be to roll everyone’s tickets over to 2018 and start planning for the next year immediately. They had a meeting with the Fyre execs to deliver the news. A guy from the marketing team said, “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”

At this point it was pretty clear that this was a mess and I shared my concerns with the man I reported to. But he assured me that the Fyre execs were legit, and said some socialite was underwriting the whole thing. The budget was okayed and we were told to carry on with our planning. That night Ja Rule gave a toast. “To living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and fucking like porn stars.” If Ja Rule is punished for anything perhaps it should be that.

Are you sure these aren't excerpts from a POLITICO story about Trump but with names changed to protect the guilty

Billy McFarland (born 1991)[1] is an American entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Spling, founder and CEO of the Magnises black card and mobile app, and partner and promoter of FyreFestival.

Spling is a tech-driven ad platform helping brands increase media engagement and marketing revenue by optimizing their content presentation.

With Magnises, access valuable benefits and members-only offers. Whether it’s a complimentary room upgrade through Magnises Travel, the best seats in the house through SportsPass, or members-only pricing for the city’s best sold out concerts, always live life as an insider.

billy made the terrible mistake of trying to expand his business empire into actual real things

Man i am stoked to see the PR campaign for 18.

3OH!3 is headlining (via Skype)

You will get 50 acres of private land with your own trained guerillas!

We will reveal Biggie and Pac's killers!