In one of his purportedly regular walk-and-talk Instagram videos, MacFarland explains that he’s putting the Fyre brand up for auction on eBay, “starting at one cent.” He continues, “We’ve had over 1,000 offers for the Fyre brand, but I am done playing games.” By “done playing games,” he means getting a new, potentially unknown sucker to give him tens of thousands of dollars for a brand synonymous with fraud. Again, in a functioning society, things like “Fyre” would no longer have cache. But, in the mid-2020s, when an agreed-upon reality is up for debate, MacFarland’s auction has reached $52,000, with 71 bids. Now, while that’s obviously overvaluing the brand by about 10,000%, it does get you a loot box of worthless goodies, including the Fyre brand name, registered trademarks & I.P, official social media accounts, marketing assets, domain names, email & SMS list (of people dying to hear more about “the greatest party that never happened”), artist & talent relationships (we assume they mean Ja Rule), and most interestingly, “Caribbean Festival Location Option (with full support from elected island leadership).” Ultimately, what he’s selling is the “global attention engine” that Fyre represents, and who could possibly say no to that?
There has been some movement in the Fyre world since the 2017 disaster and subsequent documentaries and convictions. Earlier this year, a Fyre music streaming service was announced; though, we haven’t heard anything since April. Whoever wins at auction will get a taste of that, too, should it ever happen. There are carve-outs in the eBay listing for brand licensing, including a theater project (in development) and the aforementioned streaming service. For his part, MacFarland announced a sequel to his festival, but it fell apart before MacFarland could even steal a single ticket holder’s money. The promoter announced that Fyre 2 would happen in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. When local officials denied that the festival was happening there, MacFarland accused them of theft. MacFarland currently owes about $26 million to Fyre investors, so we can only hope that his eBay scheme gets a couple more bids. The world needs guys like Billy MacFarland more than ever.
[via Stereogum]
