There’s some very trusting rich folks out there, it seems.
If convicted fraudster Billy McFarland — the guy behind the catastrophically incompetent Fyre Festival — took you to a remote airstrip outside of New York City and told you to get on a tiny plane to experience zero-gravity flight, would you climb aboard?
Apparently, some people would.
Page Six hears that ex-con McFarland took a group of around 75 of the first people to buy tickets for his do-over event, “Fyre Festival 2,” to an airfield in Orange County, NY, and sent them up in private planes to experience weightlessness. (Pilots can create the feeling of weightlessness even inside the earth’s atmosphere by flying through a certain kind of arc, y’know.)
Unlike his 2017 Bahamas “luxury” musical festival that never was, we’re told the flights went off without a hitch — and the guests were shuttled back to the city for a dinner party and concert at Le Baratin in the West Village.
Stars including Bobby Shmurda, Sleepy Hallow and Capella Grey performed.
McFarland told Page Six exclusively: “Fyre is all about bringing people who would never have otherwise met together through adventure and experiences they can’t get without us.”
As for his failures in the past, he told us: “I have one goal: share the vision of Fyre with the world while paying back everyone who’s owed. I have an incredible opportunity to make this happen and to fulfill my dream while working alongside an incredibly experienced team.”
Meanwhile, one zero-G flier told us, “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” (We think they meant that in a good way).
McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after serving four years for defrauding investors of $27.4 million dollars after the original Fyre Festival went up in flames.
The event created a global sensation when social media posts allowed people to watch in real-time as the event collapsed, leaving many would-be festival-goers stuck on the tiny island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas.
McFarland announced in August that he’s trying to rekindle Fyre.
“Fyre Festival II tickets are officially on sale,” McFarland announced in a video. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seventh-month stint in solitary confinement. I wrote out this 50-page plan of how it would take this overall interest… in Fyre and how it would take my ability bring people from around the world together to make the impossible happen.”
“In the meantime, we’ll be doing pop-ups and events across the world,” he said.
Soon after, he said that the first release of 100 tickets had sold out.
Source: NewsFinale
