fyre festival is going well

I mean, they had successfully mounted the festival five times previously, so they'd earned some credibility and some goodwill. Which they burned through.

Was it successfully, or was as it "with mounting debts that we stay one step ahead of", in a Barry Hogan / ATP manner?

Regardless, I think the point is that fans had no reason to suspect they were hucksters (it sounds like they even canceled the “right” way back in 2020). With Fyre Fest, there was an element of “why did you trust this shady Instagram thing”

At the time of Fyre Fest, the other festival that came to mind as having gone under with a problematic refund policy was Sunset Junction in L.A., which has never been mounted since though for years before that had devolved far from its original intent as a welcoming neighborhood festival I didn't do something a bit more exclusionary and disruptive to the local businesses and residents. I wonder if there was any weirdness surrounding this one beforehand that got overlooked because they were able to pull it off.