Congrats to the Winners of the Fyre Festival Lawsuit. Don't Spend That $280 Settlement All in One Place!
It's funny how the passage of time can play tricks with your memory. Even if we're talking about a relatively short amount of time. For a while there a couple of years ago, we had competing Fyre Festival documentaries that were dominating the public discourse. Because the story they covered was situated on a perfect intersection of fame, influencer culture, privilege, crime, fraud and millennials that was impossible to look away from. Not to mention, breakout star/ultimate team player Andy King:
As a culture, for a while there, we simply could not get enough of figuring out how this:
Could have deteriorated into this so soon:
But, as will always happen with such things, we moved on. The goatfuck that was Fyre Festival burned in the public mind for a while, but then was extinguished by Tiger Kings and WAPs and Mares of Easttowns and a thousand other elements of the zeitgeist.
But now the Fyre Festival is back in the news. We finally have closure on it, in the form of the victims who were scammed into blowing major sums of their (parents') money on this fiasco finally getting justice. Financial justice. Sort of.
Source - Ticketholders for the disastrous Fyre Festival could suffer one final insult, after bankruptcy proceedings that suggest they will not get the $7,220 payouts they won in a class-action lawsuit against the organizers.
Fyre Festival’s bankruptcy trustee, Gregory Messer, told a bankruptcy judge that he’s collected just $1.4 million, of which $1.1 million will go to attorneys and accountants, according to court documents first reported by the New York Post.
That leaves a paltry $300,000 to divvy up among creditors seeking more than $7 million … to the 277 ticketholders, which would equate to roughly $280 per person.
Tickets to the disastrous 2017 festival in the Bahamas were sold for $1,200 each, with package deals that cost up to $100,000. …
Organizer Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule drew millions in investments with the promise of putting on a first-of-its-kind, luxury music festival event in The Bahamas with models, DJs, luxury dwellings and extravagant meals.
They paid models like Kendal Jenner to promote the event on Instagram and blasted seduction promo videos and pictures to lure people into buying tickets that were sold at thousands of dollars each.
Let's review: The lawyers get millions. Billy McFarland and Ja Rule undoubtedly got some money in their pockets. For sure Kendal Jenner and the other models didn't promote it for free. And there's no way she didn't get paid upfront. So everybody made out in the deal except the gullible suckers who probably still haven't paid off the charges on their credit cards and who were thrown into a dangerous situation. Lord of the Flies, only with UN disaster relief pop-up shelters, stale bread and two slices of Kraft singles.
But then again, 280 bucks is not nothing. With money like that this summer, you might be able to afford one good seat to see the Jonas Brothers, a couple of tickets to see Kings of Leon or take a group of 10 to see KISS. And still have some cash leftover to make all the processed cheese food ungrilled sandwiches you want to pack for the day. So it was all worth it in the end. Congratulations. And thanks. Without your naivety, the rest of us would've missed out on a great story.