Over three years later, the Fyre Festival debacle rages on.
Ticket-holders from the calamitous April 2017 event on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma filed a class action lawsuit against the fraudulent event’s owner, Billy McFarland, following its implosion of mythical proportions. Those patrons are still in pursuit and have recently asked a New York magistrate to issue a default judgement, which would order the disgraced founder, who is currently in prison in Ohio, to pay them $7.5 million in damages.
With McFarland behind bars, a litany of investors, pass-holders, and trustees are still scrambling to receive due funds in the wake of Fyre’s bankruptcy. The tricky part, however, is where exactly those funds will come from considering his acute financial status following the festival’s humiliating public fallout.
According to a report by Complete Music Update, Fyre Festival ticket-holder Daniel Jung, who has been linked to the class action lawsuit since its genesis, states in the new legal filing that McFarland failed to respond to the most recent version of his lawsuit. Jung believes that a default judgement should be issued as a result of McFarland’s recalcitrance, requesting $7.5 million in damages.
The $7.5 million figure is based on the argument that “purchasers of Fyre Festival tickets suffered damages in that they expended money on Fyre Festival tickets, travel expenses, and other associated purchases for an event that did not deliver as advertised and was ultimately cancelled.”
“Defendant McFarland perpetrated fraud and a number of other related wrongs by making false representations about Fyre Festival in online marketing for the event, and by otherwise concealing material facts about the festival from the consuming public,” says the court papers.
