Billy McFarland, who spent years in prison for his role in the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival, says a follow-up is in the works.
“Fyre Festival II is finally happening,” McFarland tweeted on Sunday. “Tell me why you should be invited.”
As recounted in the documentaries “Fyre Fraud” and “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened,” McFarland promoted the 2017′s Fyre Festival as a luxury music festival in the Bahamas.
But when guests arrived at Great Exuma island that April, they found tents instead of luxurious villas and cold cheese sandwiches instead of gourmet food. Amid the chaos — and after cancellations from artists booked for the event — the Fyre organizers canceled the festival.
In 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud for his role in defrauding Fyre Festival investors and ticket vendors, as CNN reported at the time. He also pleaded guilty to counts of bank fraud and making false statements to a federal law enforcement agent.
“As he had previously admitted, Billy McFarland did not deliver on his promises to his investors and customers,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement at the time of McFarland’s sentencing. “Today, McFarland found out the hard way that empty promises don’t lead to jet-setting, champagne, and extravagant parties — they lead to federal prison.”
McFarland ended up serving nearly four years in prison, with some of that time spent in solitary confinement, before being freed on supervised release last year.
“I need to apologize. And that is the first and the last thing that needs to be done,” McFarland told “Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan following his release. “I let people down. I let down employees. I let down their families. I let down investors. So I need to apologize. I’m wrong, and it’s bad.”
And last month, McFarland tweeted his plan for settling his debts. “I owe people $26m,” he wrote. “Here’s how I’m going to pay it back: I spend half my time filming TV shows. The other half, I focus on what I’m really, really good at. I’m the best at coming up with wild creative, getting talent together, and delivering the moment.”