CMU School of Drama


Thursday, March 15, 2018

SXSW: ‘Trial by Fyre Festival’ Talk Parses Worst-Case-Scenario Crisis

Variety: A fantastical started-from-the-bottom-now-we-here story was the focus of a standing-room-only talk at South By Southwest titled “Trial by Fyre Festival: My MBA in Crisis Management.”

Dylan Hattem launched his creative agency DS Projects just three months before getting the call he thought would change his life: an opportunity to create all the video and photo content for a major new festival. Unfortunately, that gig involved the ill-fated Fyre Festival, and as he told with A/V-accompaniment, it’s a tale that would give any wouldbe entrepreneur nightmares.

2 comments:

Sarah Connor said...

The entire story of the Fyre Festival is just a huge lesson in management and in how bad management can literally destroy not only an event but people's lives, as seen by Dylan Hattem's investments that were made in vain and almost cost his business. I remember watching the Fyre Festival fiasco unfold in real time on Twitter and various news platforms. While it was a bit funny, it's important not just to remember the people who lost a lot of money, even their livelihoods, on this so-called concert, but also how much quick thinking and how many emergency scenarios people had to go through in order to get off this island. The management chops involved in saving people from the disastrous festival - the ability to pinpoint an issue, think critically about all the solutions, organize the people under their management and execute the solution - were unbelievable, and while it's fun to laugh at the rich people who all got trapped, you have to remember there were also people like Hattem who were just there for a job.

Marisa Rinchiuso said...

Fyre Festival was quite a spectacle to say the least. I thought this article would give more incite about the coordination and crisis management of the festival, but it was quite hard to follow. Since this is an event that is from months past, I was hoping to have some sort of summary of the whole event again to spark my memory. Without that recap, it took me a little bit to remember all that went down regarding the Fyre Festival. The festival really represents the skill and careful coordination and planning that is required to run a festival, especially a remote destination festival. I wonder where the missing link was; someone must have thought "I wonder if..." at some point, and why did they not speak up? Being a new festival with a high list clientele, how were the publicists and managers allowing for such poor management to remain. It seems that there must of been some disconnect between management and expectations. Overall, hopefully the mess of Fyre Festival will act as a landmark moment for event managers to look to as the "worst case" situation.