On December 10th, Netflix posted a Twitter update with a teaser trailer for “Fyre,” a forthcoming documentary about the disastrous Fyre Festival scam of 2017.
Fyre Festival was an unforgettable ‘event’ that resulted in a prison sentence and heavy fines. And of course, thousands of seriously pissed-off fans.
With millennials being the target viewers of “Fyre,” it is only natural that Vice Studios is producing the documentary, which is being directed by Chris Smith. Netflix will make “Fyre” available for streaming on January 18th, 2019.
If the success of a video streaming service can be measured by original content production and attention to key viewer demographics, Netflix appears to be on the right track.
The Fyre Festival was intended to be a sort of Woodstock and Lollapalooza for the Millennial Generation; it was heavily promoted on Instagram and other social networks by the likes of young and beautiful celebrities such as Emily Ratajkowski and Kendall Jenner.
Rapper Ja Rule was among the organizers, and a convicted promoter named Billy McFarland ended up with a six-year federal prison sentence for what actually happened. Instead of finding the promised luxury accommodations and pampering at an exclusive Caribbean island, festival hopefuls who paid up to $12,000 for Fyre Festival tickets found rickety tents and cheese on Wonder Bread sandwiches (see above).
The Fyre Festival promised musical acts such as Blink-182, Bedouin, Ja Rule, and many EDM acts; however, the only musicians to take the stage for a couple of hours were from a local Bahamian band. It is reported that the festival would have cost about $12 million to organize, and McFarland was on track to welcome investments in excess of $25 million from names such as Comcast because he was also involved in developing entertainment mobile apps geared towards millennials.
In the end, McFarland was ordered to forfeit more than $20 million by a federal court.
Netflix is not the only company interested in the Fyre Festival. Rival video streaming service Hulu plans a docu-series on the disaster, and Canadian actor Seth Rogen is working on feature film. For the record, more than 70 percent of American millennials subscribe to Netflix and other video streaming services.