Fyre Festival
Class Action Fyre Festival Suit Reaches $2 Million Settlement for Attendees
Prior to its catastrophic downfall, it at one point seemed that Fyre Festival could command any price for a coveted ticket to the Great Exuma event. Now, four years in the rearview, it ended up being the attendees who would be compensated for their troubles. Well, at least some of them anyway. According to The New York Times, 277 ticket holders have reached a settlement with Fyre Festival amounting to a total of $2 million—that’s $7,220 apiece. Due to the stratification of ticket prices, which ranged from $1,000 to $12,000 a pop, and with some limited luxury packages priced in the tens of thousands, it’s difficult to say whether anyone came out ahead or even broke even in terms of financials after all of this. The initial class action suit was submitted for a cl...
Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland No Longer in Solitary Confinement
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-17T23:48:31+00:00“>April 17, 2021 | 7:48pm ET Fyre Fest co-founder Billy McFarland is out of solitary confinement after spending six months in lockup for his participation in a podcast interview, according to Insider. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database, McFarland was released and transferred to FTC Oklahoma City from FCI Elkton prison in Lisbon, Ohio, where he was previously held in solitary. “It was punitive. At first, they said he violated rules by speaking to the media — which there is no such rule,” McFarland’s attorney, Jason Russo, told Insider. “Then they accused him of doing three-way calls, which you’re not allowed to do — but these were n...
Fyre Festival Attendees Receive $2 Million Settlement in Class Action Lawsuit
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-15T19:30:22+00:00“>April 15, 2021 | 3:30pm ET Organizers of the infamous Fyre Festival and 277 attendees have reached a $2 million settlement, nearly four years after a $100 million class action lawsuit was first filed, according to Billboard. Each plaintiff will receive $7,220. As Billboard notes, however, that figure could be lower depending on the outcome of Fyre Fest’s bankruptcy case with various creditors. Although the lawyers representing the ticket holders and trustee in charge of Fyre’s assets have reached the settlement, it still needs a vote of approval taking place on May 13th. Celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos filed the lawsuit in May 2017. “The festival’s lac...
Fyre Festival Cheese Sandwich Tweet Being Auctioned Off as NFT
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-08T18:16:09+00:00“>April 8, 2021 | 2:16pm ET Back in April 2017, Trevor DeHaas drew attention to the Fyre Festival fiasco by sharing a photo of the pathetic cheese sandwich served to attendees. Now, he’s hoping to follow in Fyre Fest co-founder Ja Rule’s footsteps by selling the tweet on NFT marketplace Flipkick in order to cover expenses for his daily dialysis and potential kidney transplant. DeHaas is hoping to sell the original image and ownership of the copyright for $80,000. He shared his inspiration for the idea with Axios. “A few weeks ago I saw Jack Dorsey, auctioning off the first tweet ever and at the time it was like $2.25 million,” explained DeHaas. “Instantly I thoug...
Infamous Fyre Festival Struggle Cheese Sandwich Tweet Being Sold As NFT On Ja Rule’s Flipkick Platform
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Bloomberg / Getty You can now own a legendary piece of Fyre Festival history, all for a good cause, of course. The tweet featuring that infamous struggle cheese sandwich is now the latest piece of “virtual art” being auctioned off as an NFT on Ja Rule’s Flipkick platform. Kicking off on Tuesday (Apr.6), Flipkick members can bid on the original 2017 tweet featuring a photo of the iconic cheese sandwich that also featured a handful of vegetables served on a styrofoam container. The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing. #fyrefestival pic.twitter.com/I8d0UlSNbd — Trevor DeHaas (@trev4president) April 28, 2017 Whoever winds up winning the auction will receive a transfer of copyrig...
Holla: Ja Rule Sells Fyre Festival Painting For $122K Via NFT
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty Ja Rule is turning one of the biggest failures in his career into a bright spot. The rapper and actor has moved his last physical memory of the greatest party that never happened for some heavy change. As spotted on TMZ the Queens native made a power move this week after successfully unloading a reminder of one of the biggest jigs of the twentieth century. According to the report he sold a one of one painting of the Fyre Festival logo for a cool $122,000 dollars via a NFT, a non-fungible token. This means the buyer, whose name has not been disclosed, will receive a unique digital code that is specific to the image. The piece in question is a 48″ x 60″ oil visual that was commissioned by the Murder Inc. Records rapper and was done...
Ja Rule’s Fyre Festival NFT Fetches $122,000 Bid
In a bizarre reversal of fortune, Ja Rule has monetized his involvement in the infamous Fyre Festival in a way no one could have predicted. The rapper is the latest celebrity to join the NFT craze, and has successfully auctioned off a piece of Fyre Festival history. This particular NFT is of a 48″ x 60″ poster that once hung in the company’s office, and in addition to the digital file of the asset, the winner will also receive the physical version. Like so many other NFTs as of late, this festival poster fetched a jaw-dropping winning bid. An anonymous buyer took home the work for $122,000. The original painting was created by Tripp Derick Barnes, an artist Ja Rule found on Instagram, who was paid around $2,000 for the job. The poster most recently wa...
Ja Rule Sells Fyre Festival Painting as NFT For $122K
Ja Rule is attempting to put Fyre Festival behind him. The rapper has sold an oil painting of the failed event’s logo in NFT form for $122,000. That sentence wouldn’t have made a lick of sense a couple months ago, but here’s what it means. In case the past year of mounting catastrophes clouded your memory, Fyre Festival was the extravagant music fest in the Bahamas that ended up being a comical failure full of fraud and deceit. The whole thing was orchestrated by Ja Rule and his business partner Billy McFarland, who’s currently serving a six-year prison sentence on multiple counts of fraud. The 45-year-old rapper managed to get his name cleared from the massive lawsuit, and now he’s trying to get rid of the tangible reminders of the calamity that’s since been the subject of two docume...
How to Watch ‘The Con: Fyre Festival’ Interview With Billy McFarland
However, the event quickly experienced disastrous problems related to security, food, accommodation, medical services and more, which led to the festival getting canceled. Instead of the luxury villas and high-end meals the pricey ticked promised festival attendees, they received prepackaged sandwiches and FEMA tents. In March 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud to defraud investors and ticket holders, and a second count to defraud a ticket vendor that occurred he was on bail. Later that year, he was sentenced to six years in prison. The Con, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, will interview McFarland from prison. The special airs at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. SlingTV also offers ABC as well as more than 30 other channels for $35 a month. Watch the upcoming episodeR...
Billy McFarland Has Launched a Tell-All Podcast Called “Dumpster Fyre” from Prison
The infamous face of Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland, is ready to tell his side of the story about how “the greatest party that never happened” all went down. You may be surprised to hear that McFarland seems to have had a coming to terms with the role of his involvement in the disastrous event. “When I think about the mistakes that were made and what happened, there’s no way that I can describe it but just, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?” McFarland told The Daily Mail. Of course, the marketing “guru” has a top-notch name for his forthcoming tell-all podcast: “Dumpster Fyre.” McFarland recorded the podcast in a series of 15-minute phone interviews from the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution, where he is se...
ICM Models, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber & More to Return Fraction of $1.7M Fyre Fest Promo Fees
A dozen of the agency’s models appeared in a video promoting the disastrous event that defrauded attendees and investors. ICM Models and its clients Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, Alessandra Ambrosio, Chanel Iman, Elsa Hosk, Shanina Shaik, Nadine Leopold, Hannah Ferguson, Alyssah Ali, Rose Bertram, Daniela Lopez and Gizele Oliveira have reached a settlement over a combined $1.7 million fee they received for promoting the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017. In total, they will have to repay $150,000 to a settlement account set up for the festival victims. Baldwin, Bieber, Iman and the other IMG models appeared in bathing suits in a promotional video that announced the festival, promising two “transformative” weekends that “would exceed all expectations.” While the models, along with social...
US Marshals Are Auctioning Off Old Fyre Fest Merch
Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland may be able to befriend celebrities in jail, but that’s better than him pulling off more get-rich-quick schemes during his six-year sentence behind bars. Now, there’s one less way for him to profit off others because the US Marshals are auctioning off merch from the failed event. McFarland was allegedly hoarding various pieces of merchandise in hopes of selling them for personal profit. Instead, the US Marshals have gotten ahold of the clothing stack and are currently auctioning the items off to raise money for victims of the festival who lost money (via Complex). Biding and registration has already started through the vendor Gaston & Sheehan, with the auction running through August 13th. There’s 126 items in total up for auction. The festival...
