Intrigue

Concert promoters and rapper Ja Rule advertise a high-end festival experience that fails spectacularly when they don't plan for the infrastructure to support the venue, artists and guests.

October 2016: Twenty-five-year-old Billy McFarland, a college-dropout entrepreneur and the festival's mastermind, thinks up the idea during a Halloween trip to the Bahamas with Ja Rule, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The festival is meant to promote his Fyre talent-booking app. His first move is to announce the festival in the following month and spend millions to produce ads with Instagram models. "[McFarland spent] millions on models, private jets, and yachts to promote what would be his first-ever large-scale event," Vice reported.

December 2016: Organizers recruit a group of influencers they call "Fyre Starters." Among the crop: Kendall Jenner (whom McFarland paid $250,000 for a single Instagram), Ashanti, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Hailey Baldwin. Their pitch deck flaunts millions of "media impressions" and pending partnerships with Samsung and Casamigos Tequila. The deck names Ja Rule ("widely recognized as among the most commercially successful hip-hop artists of all time") and McFarland ("he guides the company's overall direction and strategy") as the event's organizers. The "Fyre Squad" of organizers includes chief marketing officer Grant Margolin and Elliot Tebele, who cultivated a social presence repurposing other people's jokes on his Instagram account @FuckJerry. After the first round of ticket purchases come in, Margolin reportedly eyes a private island to purchase, but the island had no electricity or water, so that plan is abandoned.

December 2018: McFarland is sentenced to 6 years in prison.