Fyre Festival II: The Squeakquel pre-sale tickets have already sold out, according to founder and convicted fraudster Billy McFarland. McFarland still owes millions to the people he defrauded in the first Fyre Festival.
Despite two wire fraud convictions and still owing millions to the people he defrauded in the first Fyre Festival six years ago, Billy McFarland says pre-sale tickets have already sold out for the first 100 spots for Fyre Festival II: The Scammer Strikes Back at $500 a pop. And that’s despite any announced lineup of performers or even a location.
Fyre Festival was developed by McFarland in 2017 and advertised as a once-in-a-lifetime event across two weeks on a private beach in the Bahamas. Guests attending the so-called luxury event quickly saw that it was a scam with inadequate accommodation for the number of people attending and a lack of food and water.
McFarland was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and released from prison last year after serving just shy of four years of his original six-year sentence. But “no publicity is bad publicity” for McFarland, who tells TMZ that all the hype surrounding the massive failure of the first Fyre Festival is fueling curiosity and interest in the sequel.
Unsurprisingly, Billy says he struggled to find backers for Fyre Festival II. That is until a Broadway production company that supported a musical based on the events surrounding the first festival managed to pique the interest of financiers impressed by his apparent moxie.
McFarland says he “won’t be doing as much” at Fyre Festival II, as he is legally barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company per the SEC — but there’s always a chance he’ll be grilling up cheese sandwiches again alongside his cohort Andy King.
Andy (who infamously revealed that during the first festival, McFarland asked him to give oral sex to a customs officer to get shipments of bottled water through for festivalgoers) previously reunited with Billy to sell grilled cheese sandwiches in New York City to raise money for workers in the Bahamas who have yet to receive compensation for the original Fyre Festival.
“I’m looking forward to working with Billy and our partners to share Fyre with the world,” King tells TMZ. “I’m so grateful to have support to help us execute the ultimate redemption.”
It’ll be interesting to watch Fyre Festival II unfold, as any money it draws in should, naturally, go toward the $27.4 million McFarland and his cohorts owe to those defrauded in the original Fyre Festival disaster.