Billy McFarland has announced that he’s selling the Fyre Festival Brand, after being forced to cancel Fyre Fest 2 with short notice.
He made the announcement in a lengthy statement on his social media page.
“We knew that FYRE was big, but we didn’t realize just how massive the wave would become. That wave has brought us here: to a point where we know it’s time to call for assistance,” McFarland writes. “This brand is bigger than any one person and bigger than what I’m able to lead on my own. It’s a movement. And it deserves a team with the scale, experience, and infrastructure to realize its potential.”
He continued, “We have decided the best way to accomplish our goals is to sell the FYRE Festival brand, including its trademarks, IP, digital assets, media reach, and cultural capital – to an operator that can fully realize its vision,” he added.
The original Fyre Festival, held in 2017, was marketed as a luxury music experience in the Bahamas but quickly went viral for the wrong reasons after attendees arrived to find unsatisfactory accommodations and food.
McFarland was sentenced to six years in federal prison in October 2018 after pleading guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud, having defrauded investors of over $26 million by misrepresenting the financial health of his company, Fyre Media. McFarland reportedly used falsified documents to secure funding. He still has to pay his investors back.