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The Fyre Festival Fraud; Get Rich Fast Providing Perceived Value, Over Actual Value

MJ DeMarco

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The TLDR; A huge music festival in the Bahamas was advertised on Instagram by a bunch of Instagram narcissists, targeting a bunch of Instagram narcissists, the perfect selfie and humblebrag opportunity for over-compensating millennials who have too much money to spend from parents with too much money to spend.

This is what was advertised:


From CNN

If you turned up at the Fyre Festival wooed by its ads -- and many, many fans did -- you'd think you were in for a weekend of top-notch acts playing for your entertainment, as models in bikinis paraded around and private jets and yachts ferried you to and from the beautiful Caribbean paradise. Everything any good millennial needs for a strong Instagram post.
The reality, however, has been anything but.
Those who shelled out up to $12,780 for the luxury weekend in the Exumas, in the Bahamas, found themselves Thursday treated to mass disorganization, half-built tents, and catered food that was little more than limp cheese sandwiches.

What they got:
C-d3aDrWAAEOWRX.jpg


C-evZaZUQAAMHkb.jpg


Other links to the scamage...

Fyre Festival Head Billy McFarland: 'We Were a Little Naive'

The organizer of the doomed Fyre festival was previously accused of scamming millennials with promises of Hamilton tickets and trips to Cuba

Fyre Festival: When a $12,000 luxury festival in a Caribbean paradise turns into chaos - CNN.com
The Fyre Festival Was a Luxury Nightmare

Sorry, but I can't help laugh.
 
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Mattie

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Have to say that reminds me of a back yard graduation party or beer tent.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Have to say that reminds me of a back yard graduation party or beer tent.

Except you didn't pay $12,000 for that. :rofl:
 

GuitarManDan

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I was just reading that they made everyone sign a blank sheet of paper that was supposed to be a "refund sheet"... that seems extremely sketchy.

After the way they handled this whole ordeal, my first thought was they'd use that sheet to justify people NOT getting refunds. Interested to see how this plays out.
 
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Mattie

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Choate

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Cheese sandwich reminds me of what my host family in Germany used to pack me for lunch. Ha! But that was just custom, and I didn't have expectations of a well catered meal from some famous chef.

I followed this on Reddit for a little while since it was a good laugh. Lots of trolls though hopping in and distorting the image further (but hey who can blame them, sounds like fun!). It seems they are further trying to scam the models out of pay by having them delete all Instagram photos ("to erase publicity", but really to have it seem like they never did any work).

It seems a class action law suit will follow. To that, I say good luck. Its probably best they got off the island early since Exuma, Bahamas is a massive shark capital and they'd probably be naive enough to go drunk swimming at night or something.
 
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Bellini

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Horrors!

Sounds like a nightmare.

And yet 25-yr-old Billy the organizer says "Next year when we do it ..." ??

That New Yorker article was harrowing. I wonder how many lawsuits are forthcoming.
 

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Boundaries of the impossible.jpg (The text is all from their promo video...)
 
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biophase

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From the looks of the video, it looks like they weren't a complete scam. They had planned to set up tents, toilet, etc... But they did not plan for the weather. Also looks like they ran out of money and probably weren't willing to come out of pocket to make things right. I wonder what the details of the payment and accommodations were. Can anyone link the actual prices and contract? Would love to see them. As someone who runs overseas excursions, weather is something I always worry about. It can make a well planned trip into a nightmare.
 

PaulRobert

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Guess they have a lot Fyres to put out right now. :clench:


Millennial = Naive? :eyes:

The "I put my entire life on Instagram and need attention to fill an empty black hole and just one more selfie in a nice 12k cabana will bring me to Instagram stardom." millennial.
 
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ZF Lee

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I'll sum up the advertisement:
a. Loud music that doesn't make me pull out my wallet
b. Scenic shots and babes that have nothing related to a festival. Worse of all, the beginning of the video featured private jets. You are not targeting the rich! You are targeted a lower-income traveler type of young people,music lovers, which is coincidentally a larger consumer base to target
c. No USP. If there is one, it looks weak for my ignorance.
d. Lack of validation. No testimonials, personal human contact, prior track record. No top singer endorsing the festival, even on the promo video.

Anyone who falls for these weak marketing tricks that has too much old-fashioned sex-selling does not deserve to be a consumer, let alone a Fastlane producer. It may not be a scam, but the after effects are close to that of one.

From the looks of the video, it looks like they weren't a complete scam. They had planned to set up tents, toilet, etc... But they did not plan for the weather. Also looks like they ran out of money and probably weren't willing to come out of pocket to make things right. I wonder what the details of the payment and accommodations were. Can anyone link the actual prices and contract? Would love to see them. As someone who runs overseas excursions, weather is something I always worry about. It can make a well planned trip into a nightmare.

Ran out of money? You got to be kidding me.
A festival is like a trade show. With multiple tribes of parties mingling together, of course you need the cooperation of several parties to organize the event. For big dragons, you don't go solo!

For weather, I'm sure that some organizers do have protocols and special equipment as part of packages to deal with weather. But of course you need to pay for them. But what irks me is that 'they ran out of money'? What happened to pre-sells and sponsors? Music festivals like most central events are great advertising spots for sponsorships. What happened to musicians' publicity? Surely the performers might have their own fan base to draw in the sales. If they didn't, this tells me a lot of the reputation of their musicians and the festival as a whole.

I might consider music festivals to have a very HIGH entry barrier for CENTS. You need good facilities, musicians and so on. A music festival can't be just run by people who just 'felt in love with the place', as described in the article. That's a suckage for the Commandment of Need. Sure, they got some people to buy, but emotions obviously overpowered pragmatism, leading to underestimation.

You don't do bloody business just for passion! You do it to solve a need, in this case, the need for unique music naturalised in a natural environment, which is not contaminated by modern vibes.
Break ENTRY and NEED, and this shit happens.

The asses better not hold this event again. Their reputation is as good as dead.
Please set this thread to #GOLD or NOTABLE, @MJ DeMarco. There's a lot of nuggets to salvage from this destruction!

Even when the organizers refute this as 'not a scam', the sad thing is that even scam seminars are organized WAY better than this.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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The most surprising thing about this is CNN reported what actually happened

You must have missed the part when they blamed Trump for the Fyre debacle, of course, where he was working on behalf of the Russians.
 
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CycleGuy

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lol I can't imagine paying $12,000 per ticket for any type of music festival for a week only.

I feel like their are two types of millennials emerging right now.

One camp is extremely narcissistic, impulsive, and supported by a golden parachute from their wealthy slowlane parents. They will continue to live their lives one snap at a time while not realizing the consequences of their actions until they are 40 years old with no savings, working a dead end job.

The other camp are cynical survivors of the great recession. The second camp were fed a lie by their baby boomer parents: "GO TO SCHOOL, GET A DEGREE, INSTANTLY MAKE $50k-120K A YEAR WITH FULL BENEFITS WITH ANY 4 YEAR DEGREE". These millennials have discovered that the lie early in the recession and have been doing whatever it takes to survive. They didn't have the golden parachute of the other camp. The second group has become extremely conservative with spending. They also are used to making money in unconventional ways that were previously looked down upon by the slowlane.

I'm hoping for great things from the second group of millennials as we all become major spenders in the world economy.
 

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LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoo

when i scrolled down from the video to the image... i died LOL!!!! LOL!!!!!!!
 

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You must have missed the part when they blamed Trump for the Fyre debacle, of course, where he was working on behalf of the Russians.
If Hillary had won, the Frye Festival would have been a huge success, so I blame white, male, sexist voters.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Dammmn
 

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I didn't make it to last year's Fastlane Summit so if someone could do a comparison of that beautiful, photogenic cheese sandwich vs MJ's homemade ones it would be much appreciated...
 

Ravens_Shadow

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I didn't make it to last year's Fastlane Summit so if someone could do a comparison of that beautiful, photogenic cheese sandwich vs MJ's homemade ones it would be much appreciated...

BGme0Z1.png


I can still taste it. It even had the words "unscripted " grilled into the top bun, look closely. Definitely the best sandwich of all time.
 
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Bellini

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rollerskates

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Ja Rule, you're Fyred!

I hope the celebrities that promoted it are being sued too. What a horrible horrible example they are for young people. I really worry about kids these days constantly thinking something is cool because a celebrity says so. Pretty sure I could write an entire doctoral thesis on this subject alone, but I'll spare you all.
 

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