The Fyre Festival may now be but wisps of black, billowing smoke destined to float through years of prolonged, multi-million dollar lawsuits, but let us not forget the old adage that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat another day of damp mattresses, cheese sandwiches, feral dogs, and air not filled with the dulcet tones of Blink-182.”
Organizers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland claim the whole ordeal was “NOT A SCAM,” and that the festival’s myriad problems were “beyond our control.” Insider accounts deny this narrative, saying the festival was “always going to be a disaster.” We may never know the truth, but what we do have is Fyre’s pitch deck for investors, which was obtained by Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton. Bilton describes the $25 million pitch as “one of the most preposterous invitations for outside capital” he’s ever seen.
Bilton’s piece goes on to highlight the pitch deck’s emphasis on “Fyre Starters” (the deck also includes phrases such as “Fyre Squad” and “Fyre Tribe”), the brand’s group of celebrity “influencers” who they hired to promote the festival on Instagram and other platforms. While this kind of advertising is simply the natural evolution of the business, what the Fyre debacle reveals is how deceitful the whole process can be. Bilton writes:
One of the biggest deceits of the entire media campaign was that almost all of the 400 influencers who shared the promotional videos and photos never noted they were actually advertising something for someone else, which the Federal Trade Commission requires. This kind of advertising has been going on for years, and while the F.T.C. has threatened to crack down on online celebrities and influencers deceitfully failing to disclose that they are paid to post sponsorships, so far those threats have been completely ignored.