Fyre Festival II has an official date and location.
Billy McFarland, the founder of the original 2017 music festival that was shrouded in controversy, sat down for an interview with NBC News’ Savannah Sellers on TODAY Sept. 9 to reveal exclusive details.
“Fyre Festival II is happening April 25, 2025, so we’re seven and a half months away,” he said. “We have a private island off the coast of Mexico in the Caribbean, and we have an incredible production company who’s handling everything from soup to nuts.”
He said the festival will run for three days until April 28, 2025. He couldn’t confirm the name of the island just yet, but said the plan is to lean on existing infrastructure for lodging, eateries and restrooms. The aforementioned production company, the name of which he didn’t indicate, will handle logistics.
He added, “But we are developing and building out the private island for the actual festival festivities.”
The initial Fyre Festival in April 2017, which promised a luxury experience on a private island in the Bahamas with top entertainment, took a disastrous turn and went viral online when attendees who paid thousands for tickets ended up with no concert, sleeping in tents and eating cheese sandwiches in takeout boxes.
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In March 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges involving the event. He then pleaded guilty in July 2018 to separate fraud charges related to another ticket-selling scam, NBC News reported. He was sentenced in October 2018 to six years in prison. He served about four years before he was released early in May 2022.
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More than a year after his release, in August 2023, he resurfaced to announce on Instagram that Fyre Festival II was on the way.
In his interview with Sellers, McFarland said he is still in the planning stages of booking acts.
“We haven’t booked any talent for Fyre II,” he said. “It’s not going to be just music — for example, karate combat. We’re in talks with them to set up a pit to have, like, live fights at Fyre Festival II.”
Asked how McFarland would pitch artists following the failure of the first Fyre Festival, he said he and organizers have “the chance to embrace the storm.”
“Since 2016 Fyre has been the most talked about music festival in the world,” he said. “Obviously, a lot of that has been negative, but I think that most people, once they kind of get under the hood and study the plans and see the team behind Fyre II, they see the upside. We have the chance to embrace this storm and really steer our ship into all the chaos that has happened. And if it’s done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry.”
It won’t be cheap to go to Fyre Festival II, either. McFarland said he already sold 100 tickets for $500 a piece, and other packages will soon go on sale ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million.”
So what, exactly, will attendees get with a $1.1 million ticket?
“You will be on a boat, have the luxury yachts that we partner with who will be docked and parked outside the island,” he said. “But once again, Fyre is not just about this, like, luxury experience. It’s about the adventure. So you’ll be scuba diving with me. You’ll be bouncing around to other islands and other countries on small planes.”
As for convincing others let down by the first festival to return, McFarland said he has a plan for that, too.
“It’s hard because this is the deeper issue, where there are people who were legitimately hurt and let down from Fyre I, whether that was an employee and a family of a member of an employee, a ticket holder,” he said. “So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to repay those people. I don’t think it’s practical. I don’t actually think it’s right to try to do all that in the first year. I think that would lead to short term decisions. So we were trying to find small ways to give back to everybody that was hurt along the way.”
Although he is looking to revamp the festival and the brand this time, one thing will remain: the cheese sandwiches. The meal in the styrofoam box that went viral in 2017 will get a twist for Fyre Festival II.
“We will have cheese sandwiches,” he said. “They’re going to be super expensive, too. We’re going to make them, like, really good. That’ll be, like, the highest priced food item, I think.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
