CMU School of Drama


Saturday, May 06, 2017

Fyre Festival Employees Speak Out: Details Behind the Chaos

Variety: The Fyre Festival has achieved such notoriety in such a short time that it hardly seems possible that just a week ago, the first panicked tweets began to emerge from the Bahamas about the disorganized mess the heavily hyped event had become. A splashy video ad filled with models luxuriating on yachts and sun-kissed beaches had promised a designer music festival featuring Blink-182, Migos, Major Lazer, Disclosure and others on an island purportedly formerly owned by Pablo Escobar (who actually never owned an island in the Bahamas). Instead, attendees who had been promised luxury accommodation and meals prepared by celebrity chefs found flimsy tents, boxed lunches and near-total disorganization — and long waits for flights to return to the mainland after airlines began refusing to fly would-be concertgoers to the overcrowded island of Exumas.

2 comments:

Lauren Miller said...

Another day, another Fyre Festival comment. I remember seeing the initial fallout from this event splattered across social media. It actually gave many people with anti-wealth or socialist opinions a platform. The first mention I heard of the chaotic failure was in a comment along the lines of “if you have 12k to blow on a festival instead of helping other, you deserve this”. Anyways, it was interesting to read about the relationship between the production company and the young developers. I recognize the illusion of infallibility in many of my friends and peers at school. Even I find myself just repeating that it will all be alright and I have plenty of time to do what cannot possibly fit into my timeline. And I recognize that this is a very dangerous mentality to carry. I know that I screw myself over consistently by ignoring reality and just believing that I can do it, when I actually don’t have the resources or time to do it well. I hope that this trend does not continue in those of my generation who will go on to produce shows and festivals.

Sarah Boyle said...

So I was aware that this festival failed to deliver on its promises, but this is the first article I read about it. And wow does this sound terrible. I mean the people being interviewed, who were quite willing to talk in detail about the festival, still speak anonymously. They aren’t working with this company any more, and they are definitely not looking to work with them ever again, but I doubt they want their name in any way linked to this event. And aside from being self-centered, not listening to more qualified advice around them, and generally not caring about the consumer, they also had to make some sexist comments and be terrible to the people on this island. They didn’t pay restaurant bill? How many bills did they leave behind? And what compromises were made looking ahead to a hotel that never came. Or even just the chaos in their lives of all the concertgoers trying to get off the island at once.