In January, he took meetings in a 1,400-square-foot penthouse room with a private wraparound terrace on the top floor of the swanky Murray Hill Tuscany Hotel in NYC, according to interviews and receipts obtained by VICE News.Īnd despite the criminal charges and the flameout of his last two businesses - Fyre Media and the concierge service Magnises, which offered its members VIP experiences - people showed up to entertain his pitch, a scheme to make money off Instagram live streams. “The people sending them should realize by now that they’re just going to end up in the news as, ‘Here’s another scam for Fyre Festival attendees.’”Įven so, interviews and documents show people were still willing to take a chance, both with McFarland and with the dubious offers sent by email.Īs a dozen-odd civil and criminal lawsuits inched their way through New York’s state and federal courts this winter, McFarland, out on bail, began pursuing new business ventures.

“I just laugh when I get these offers,” said Seth Crossno, a festival attendee who rose to Twitter stardom after he began live-tweeting updates from the Bahamas last year. Read: Fyre Festival organizers blew all their money early on models, planes, and yachts Since December, onetime subscribers to email lists created by McFarland have been hit with offers from a variety of companies sharing a familiar theme: access to the billionaire lifestyle on a millennial budget.įyre Fest victims have been offered things like the use of a multimillion-dollar home in the Hamptons, front-row seats and backstage access at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, meet-and-greets with megastars like Taylor Swift and LeBron James, and VIP tickets to events like Burning Man and Coachella.īut the offers have another thing in common with the Fyre Festival, the celebrity-studded music fest in the Bahamas that never happened: They aren’t real.

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