Fyre Festival, a musical event, was arranged to be held on the Exuma, island of Great in the Bahamas. This gala event was supposed to take place this year for the first time and was planned by Ja Rule and Fyre Media owner Billy McFarland. Well-known international models like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid took to Instagram to promote this mega event that was scheduled to happen over two weekends in the month of April as well as May this year. The plan was to provider VIP packages worth USD 12,000 which include travel tickets, luxury, eco-friendly tents, and cuisine prepared by top chefs. Day ticket prices were set at USD 1500.
However, there were major issues with the arrangement and organization of the event as things were not in place by the time the event goers started arriving. It was reported that instead of luxurious tents, the guests were provided with disaster relief tents with dirt floors and cheese sandwiches were served instead of promised exquisite cuisine by top chefs. There were complaints of mishandling of baggage, lack of security and it was evident that the organizers were unsuccessful to set up even acceptable food and accommodation facilities at the party site. They did notice the chaos on the island and tried to get a grip on the situation. But despite the efforts, the event was finally canceled after a stage performance of a musical group for few hours, on the very first day of the event.
Ja Rule reached out to twitter and assured the attendees of a safe return to Miami at the earliest, but without running water on the island and hardly any food supplies, visitors were left stranded, and they had to wait for hours at the airport as flights were canceled after the event got called off.
Social media was flooded with posts from different attendees, and they held the organizers responsible for the mega disaster. A lot of observers did not only put the blame on McFarland and his co-organizers but also accused the influencers who promoted the festival of being partly responsible for the situation. Instead of carefully examining whether what they were promoting is actually a genuine venture or not, these celebrities simply took the money and promoted an event which was hardly organized at all. They, thus, deceived their followers by making them believe the festival was a luxurious event and worth their money. This, once again, raises the question if celebrity influencers identify themselves with the events and products they promote or if they just cooperate with every brand or company that complies with their requirements regarding payment.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem the influencers were bothered by any of this as there were no reports of any sympathetic or apologetic posts made by any of these celebrities on social media and the organizers have been slapped with about seven different lawsuits, one of them seeking damages more than a 100 million and the others regarding lying swindling and cheating ticket buyers.
