Fyre Festival came to life through a massive social media marketing campaign, but turned out to be essentially fraudulent, causing a legal and social media backlash that has only just come to a close. Back in 2017, Billy McFarland, the CEO of Fyre Entertainment and rapper Ja Rule teamed up to create “Fyre Festival,” a music festival that was supposed to take place over two weekends in Spring 2017 (Hanbury). The festival was marketed as the “next Coachella,” advertised as having great music, gourmet food, and an incredible experience on the island of Exuma in the Bahamas. Social media was key in promoting and creating hype around this festival. The festival organizers secured over 400 “Fyre Starters,” or influencers to promote the festival on their social media accounts (Bilton). Some of these influencers included Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Hailey Baldwin. The extensive marketing plan was remarkably effective and created a lot of buzz around the event (Lee).
The major flaw with their use of social media was that they created an image of an event that they were not able to live up to in reality. When people arrived on the remote island, they came to a situation that was far from what was advertised on social media. The weather was bad, so the festival was canceled and hundreds of festival-goers were left stranded on the island and then in the airport with little water and amenities.
Social media was also key to revealing the fraudulent nature of the festival. Attendees live-tweeted their experiences, sharing photos of the less-than-gourmet food and the mess of an airport situation, with photos depicting people shoved into a tiny airport and people fainting. This festival magnified the current trend on social media of “exposing people,” where people will tweet pictures of things that are not how they are marketed to be. Attendees used social media – the platform that had drawn them to the festival in the first place – to show that the festival was not the paradise dream it was advertised to be. Additionally, Fyre Festival magnified the existing dynamics between celebrities and fans, as it revealed the intense appeal of celebrity in the way the promoters were able to draw people into the festival by using familiar influencers in their promotion.
But social media also magnified and increased the level of mistrust that can exist between the consumer and the supplier. On October 12, 2018, Fyre Entertainment CEO Billy McFarland was given six years in prison on the basis of fraud in association with the festival. The same social media that was responsible for the creation of his festival was the same social media to take him down.
Citations:
Bilton, Nick. “Exclusive: The Leaked Fyre Festival Pitch Deck is Beyond Parody.” Vanity Fair, 1 May 2017,www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/fyre-festival-pitch-deck. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.
Hanbury, Mary. “These photos reveal why the 26-year-old organizer of the disastrous Fyre Festival has been sentenced to 6 years in prison.” Business Insider, 11, Oct. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-expectations-vs-reality-2017-4. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018
Lee, Ben. “Fyre Festival: A Case Study in Social Media Misuse.” Inc., 1 May 2017, www.inc.com/ben-lee/how-social-media-built-up-fyre-festival-then-burned-it-to-the-ground.html. Accessed 4 Nov. 2018.