Published on February 21, 2019 Anita M. White, CMP
I remember the orange posts from influencers all over social media promoting Fyre Festival. I remember looking at the glossy advertising and thinking that’s beautiful but this event is not for me. I’ll also raise a hand to say I devoured the social media posts from influencers during Fyre Festival for the same reason most people watch Nascar or horror movies. You know something tragic is going to happen but you still have to watch. The documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, was everything that I love/hate about horror films. It was great! As an event planner, I kept watching this event unfold and seeing the red flags from stakeholder management to project management to risk management that was threaded through with fraud and false advertising. It was not the attendees who ate ham sandwiches and had to fight to squat in repurposed FEMA tents and sleep on wet mattresses that broke my heart.
While it was a nightmare for them and they lost thousands of dollars, they went home. What broke my heart were the hundreds of unpaid Haitian vendors, contractors and employees who lost everything on a dream that Billy McFarland and Ja’ Rule sold after working so hard for a deadline they could not meet.
I think I’m most shocked by the veteran event planner who was willing to take one for the team to get water for the festival. There were so many points in the documentary where I thought why did they continue working for McFarland? How had they bought so much into this scam that any planner knew was impossible no matter how much money you threw at it? There were so many red flags. From meeting planners to event producers, at what point would you have cut your losses or had the reality check. I’m debating about watching Fyre Fraud, Hulu’s documentary about the festival. I’m wondering if it offers more insight into how McFarland was able to swindle so many people out of so much money.
I keep remembering that the whole purpose of the festival was to launch the crowd sourcing app for music groups. It was the whole purpose of the festival. The festival was supposed to launch the app and it destroyed the company that developed the app and sent McFarland to jail.
I believe that you learn something from everything. In that spirit, I want to create and a discussion group with event planners and suppliers to discuss Fyre Festival. What did you learn from this non festival? Have you had a Fyre Festival event or a Billy McFarland client? Have you ever bought into your client’s vision to the exclusion of reality?
Anita M. White, CMP 