This pairing makes a certain sort of sense as Fyre Fest pivoted to streaming earlier this year, though the new owners are a little vague about what they plan to do with it. A press release boasts a “reimagined vision for Fyre” that “expands beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise.” LimeWire CEO Julian Zehetmayr said, “Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history. We’re not bringing the festival back—we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.” COO Marcus Feistl reiterated that LimeWire is “here to own the meme and do it right” by pairing “cultural relevance with real execution.”
Executing what is anyone’s guess. Brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr bought LimeWire in 2022 and turned it into an NFT service. As NFTs seem to be a marriage of crypto and memes, perhaps it’s no surprise they’d be interested in Fyre Festival and Billy McFarland’s various shenanigans. His last was selling the brand on eBay for around $250,000 in July, which was lower than he’d like, but he did at least find the then-undisclosed new ownership “funny.”
LimeWire isn’t the only entity interested in Fyre Festival. It was recently announced that Taika Waititi would produce a stage musical about the ill-conceived and ill-fated event. And his Free Guy co-star Ryan Reynolds’ production company/digital marketing agency Maximum Effort also put a bid on the festival. Though he lost, Rolling Stone reports he was nevertheless able to link up with LimeWire, leading to a collaboration on a new Visa ad narrated by Reynolds. In the press release announcing the acquisition, the actor shared his own statement: “Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest. I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.”
