Billy McFarland has discussed his future plans following the notorious Fyre Fest.
In 2017, the fallout from Fyre Fest dominated news headlines, even leading to a detailed Netflix documentary, The Greatest Party That Never Happened. For his part in the debacle, US businessman McFarland was accused of fraud, and he would spend four years in prison for financial crimes.
7 years after Fyre Fest, however, and McFarland is plotting his comeback.
In the first episode of ‘The Music Network Podcast’, McFarland sat down with The Brag Media Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief Poppy Reid to discussing his plans to make amends.
“Paying everybody back is the most important thing for me,” he told the hosts. “I think I violated the trust of people who supported me for four or five years.”
According to McFarland, he’s floating the idea of a new Fyre Fest. “People want to escape reality for three days,” he said, adding that interest in the traditional festival – hundreds of thousands of people standing together staring at a stage – “has dwindled.” Party goers today, McFarland said, are “more interested in experiences and adventures and what happens when you do these things with other people.”
Fyre Fest 2, McFarland said on the podcast, will be about ““an experience with music being the backdrop.”
An announcement is slated to be made sometime soon, with the date announce for early winter 2025, the identify of the partner named, a Caribbean location, and a lineup.
McFarland, however, admitted some doubts about his new venture. “I’m scared of losing the magic that the chaos of Fyre 1 created,” he said, “by making it so professional. The thrill of doing something that you would never do without Fyre.”
Elsewhere in the podcast episode, McFarland chatted about Kanye West, his Fyre Fest co-founder Ja Rule, 50 Cent, and much more. Watch and listen to the full episode above.
The first episode of ‘The Music Network Podcast’ is out now, available on all major podcast platforms and Youtube.
