Fyre (2019) Online

It was almost palpable, the sense of unease that you feel as the concert goers began to realize just how much of a disaster they'd signed up for...even though you knew it was coming. This was a very well told story, and aside from that, the best thing I could say is that it was told very to-the-point. It wasn't a long, rambling documentary...it said what needed to be said, yet also gives the viewer a nuanced view of just how some of the people behind this promotion were able to be dragged in over their heads. You can't help but feel for some of these guys, as they were taken for just as much of a ride as the festival attendees, but lost more than just the cost of a ticket. There's currently a Gofundme page set up for the owner of a restaurant who worked tirelessly to provide food for everyone, giving up her life savings in the process. Apparently she was very reluctant to speak on camera, as the issue is still very hurtful for her, but hopefully it'll end up being worth it for her having done so.

If you don't know much about this event, this is one heck of a story insofar as the difference between what was advertised and what was eventually produced, the dichotomy itself provided quite a bit of entertainment value with its "wow" factor. Great documentary on a very interesting part of our zeitgeist, a testament to the power of social media as well as its potential for abuse and the superficiality it helps foster.

Netflix's take on the Fyre Festival fiasco has a more grounded vibe than Hulu's more montage-driven version. But ultimately both platforms do well in building up what the Fyre disaster was all about, both before and after it all. We can debate on the ethics of what occurred behind the scenes of each doc, at the end of the day there was little bias to be had as the message was the same: Billy McFarland was a delusional fraduster.

The real entertainment is seeing wealthy people predictably buy into the facade of luxury only to experience first world problems as if they have it worse than the middle class. When the "worst 24 hours of your life" involves a botched Bahamas vacation because some huge festival party you paid thousands for didn't happen, it just looks ridiculous compared to people going through real issues like years of no clean water in Flint, MI.

No one deserves to suffer, but there is hilarity in seeing self-important narcissistic party socialites who never worked a day in their lives get scammed because they put their trust in some circle of wealthy social media models and "influencers"...for some luxury party.

This documentary illustrates the perfect analogy of the social media illusion with the Fyre fest disaster. Some things are just too good to be true, and may even be a facade of something much much worse. It is an important documentary to raise awareness of the problems of social media and the concept of understanding what it takes to do something seemingly impossible.

At some point the life we actually lead has become less important that the life we want others to think we lead. Social media allows us to cherry pick the images and moments that amplify the sweet spots and eliminate the dark ones and the kings and queens of social (influencers) do this best of all. They confect a fairytale life and monetise it by selling their influence to convince us mere mortals to buy products and experiences that maybe bring us a tiny step closer to their higher plane. So it was with Fyre - music festival experience that could never in fact have been achieved, but was imagined so fiercely that thousands of people signed up for it. Fyre was a Ponzi scheme of finance, and also of dreams. Billy McFarland is the Bernie Madoff of influence Ponzi schemes, convincing investors, social influencers, marketers, promoters and entertainers to both believe and spread the dream, even when their eyes and minds were telling them that 10,000 millennials on a scrappy bit of dirt on an island in the Bahamas was never going to be a reality. That, in spite of McFarland's scams that bookend the Fyre Festival debacle, and his subsequent 6 year jail sentence, some people are still believers speaks a lot for both his charisma and their gullibility. The documentary is shameful list of the scorched earth McFarland left behind, from exploited construction workers all the way through to his faithful inner-circle. It's jaw-dropping stuff, but a salient reminder that if even smart, successful people can be blinded by a good showman, our kids are at daily risk of having their faith, self-esteem, mental health, credibility and financial security threatened by the smoke and mirrors of social media. I'm sure other people will see a different side to McFarland et al, and they may also criticise this documentary for its perspective, but for me it was both entertaining and a reminder that fairytales are almost always morality tales as well.

I remember seeing the infamous promotional video for this festival (not that I'm wealthy enough to attend this kind of event, but some friend sent me the link, so I could "contemplate" the "dream" that other people were going to live). I remember feeling confused about this: what is it, exactly? It's some music festival, but all we see is this Caribbean landscape with a yacht, jetskis and girls in bikinis. Not that this seemed just like a lure, but clearly this was just pretty archetypical promo that could have been just one of a thousand meaningless "influencer" videos in this Instagram era where people are more busy turning their life into a promotional object than living and enjoying it.

I also remember reading the Vice article documenting the extent of the disaster the actual event was. That article is what got me to understand that this was actually supposed to be a music festival (I did not bother looking into that sort of detail after being sent the initial promotional video, as it seemed like your typical, meaningless Instagram garbage).

Then, over a year later, I see this thing in the Netflix menu, and decide to watch it. This is an interesting story where what one would initially perceive as pure naivety clearly turns into plain deceit, and where the expectations of grandeur for the "dream" being sold were artificially inflated through social media. And on that last point, I think this documentary does a pretty decent job of mocking how social media and "influencers" (still can't believe that's how these parasites are called), in today's world, is all about style over substance, expectations vs. reality, and the culture of appealing people with luxury items and "lifestyle" while having an empty bank account or being in major debt. How many of these stories have we heard over the years, of people living the "good life", only to go bankrupt a few year later? This is the new "15 minutes of fame" concept, one heavily filtered picture at a time.

The documentary gathers a satisfying amount of interviews with people who worked on the event, of on-site footage before and during the event, and of other significant moments that show you the true colors of Billy McFarland and Ja Rule - the founders of this scam. You do get some insight on their mentality throughout, as Ja Rule and McFarland have no grasp whatsoever on reality and won't take no for an answer, regardless of whether what they want to do is within the realm of possibility or not. It does not matter to them. They're in the Caribbean, they always got a beer in their hands, and they couldn't care less about the logistics - until the very last second, when they got their back against the wall, but will take their customers' money regardless.

As I mentioned before, at first, it seems like they really are doing their best to materialize the vision they had. That vision, however, is soon enough unveiled as something that obviously won't happen, with mountains of financial and logistical challenges that just can't possibly be climbed, as could have easily been predicted, had the founders not been so short-sighted and stubborn.

The structure of the documentary quickly turns into a countdown to the event, and boy it's not short on cringey moments, let me tell you that. It obviously escalates as the event approaches and you know the ship is about to hit the iceberg, big time. While it may be hard to feel pity or sympathy towards rich kids who can afford to spend 25K on that kind of weekend getting ripped off, "Fyre" somewhat debunks a mentality that plagues North American society and reveals the emptiness behind each lavish lifestyle picture posted by these "influencers" on Instagram to a much wider scale by giving a prime example of an empty shell that was created and promoted on social media.

Overall, this "anatomy of a modern day disaster" documentary is very well put together, one cringeworthy moment after another. Worth watching if you've heard of this fiasco and you're curious about how it all went down.

I remember hearing about Fyre Festival through friends on social media talking about how it looked like the coolest thing ever. I watched the promo video and it all seemed way too good to be true, but then I'm a cynic and I thought "Hey, maybe I'll be wrong". Yeah, not a chance.

This documentary in a lot of ways is a brilliant insight into social media & its influence on modern society. The entire festival was built up from promo videos posted on social media and posts from 'influencers' (a term that I absolutely hate and this documentary shows why you shouldn't trust 'influencers') that detailed an idealistic experience that every Instagram and Facebook obsessed kid would dream of.

The funniest thing is that in reality, these kids didn't actually want to attend the festival, rather they wanted to be seen attending it - they wanted to post about it on social media to show that THEY had been there. The whole festival was about the image, and that was a great marketing factor in the 'organisers' favour (I say 'organisers' because as you see in the documentary, it doesn't look like anyone organised anything here).

The beauty of this is that everything about the festival was surface level. There was nothing underneath. No-one had bothered to actually engage anyone with real business acumen in the festival planning industry until too late in the piece. It's probably one of the best examples of why money isn't necessarily the answer to everything. The co-founders had a lot of money and it didn't save anything. There needed to be some actual business development here and no-one really bothered to give that its dues.

The worst thing is that, while I didn't like the concept from the start, this type of festival could really have worked. Sure, it's still a complete shining example of the social media craze amongst our society but there was still potential. If there had been an actual plan from the start, and it wasn't throw together based on a promo video and 'influencer' posts, then we could have seen some revolutionary event that everyone wanted to attend, even if they didn't want to admit it. But we didn't see that. What we saw instead is a bunch of idiots thinking that their great ideas will just work because they're really passionate about them. Be careful of your obsession with your image, otherwise you might end up like ol' Billy.

This is a fascinating look on what really happened about the this failer festival from 2017. Goes to show it was just an event with a bunch of Influencers being tricked out of all their money and stranded on a desert island. I see literally nothing bad about that, we should have one every year. My kind of mess.

A nice in depth look to the disaster Fyre event and a behind the scenes look at how a great business idea can explode when you don't plan properly and you're selling an idea rather than a product. You'll be satisfied by the outcome but bittersweet knowing that a rich boy never learnt his lesson in the end.

Seemed to good to be true...was. This is better than Hulu's version, it has better pacing and is more narrative driven. Shows you the whole story. These guys were in so far over their head it's shocking. Check it out thank me later.

I'd heard about Fyre in the media but didn't know any of the detail. This doc provides lots of behind the scenes footage, insightful interviews and tells the story really well.

I had not heard of this festival or even it's outcome, but that could be because I am far from being in the class of people that were duped. I feel sorry for the honest minority who were robbed of their hard-earned wages and their livelihood.

That is the extent of my sorrow. It's hard to feel sorry for the upper class who think nothing of paying thousands of dollars for a weekend of debauchery. For a short time, they got to see first hand how the 'little people' live; no shelter, no food, no sanitation.

Hearing a socialite complain that the jet trip to the Bahamas was like 'riding in economy class' sums it up. And Billy McFarland will no doubt be back to prey on the wealthy again.

When it rains it pours. Both Netflix and Hulu decided to come out with documentaries about the Fyre Festival at almost exactly the same time.

The main takeaway from both is just how easy it is to separate people from a *lot* of money if you're willing to lie with a straight face, and when it comes to that, there's really no substitute for letting McFarland tell the story in his own words, which is what the Hulu version does. Unfortunately, so much of that version is devoted to him that they leave out some pretty important things, so if you only watch one, definitely watch this one instead.

This version is a much better documentary all around, and gives a much more complete picture of what happened.

I had exactly the same reaction watching this as I do watching documentaries about religious cults. There's no question McFarland is a pathological liar and narcissistic sociopath, and absolutely everything about him is a red flag. If I ran into someone like that, I would immediately conclude he was at best a blowhard, and more likely a straight up con man, yet somehow he was able to put a lot sincere, hard working people under his spell, some of whom were young and naive, but some of whom definitely should have known better.

My guess is he's already running scams from inside Club Fed, but if not, there's no question he'll waste no time once he gets out, and he'll have no trouble finding marks.

Of course, in the end, the real victims are the Bahamians worked round the clock trying to make this happened, and then didn't get paid. They were pretty much left out of the Hulu version, but my understanding is that this film is raising awareness of them, and they're getting some relief.

I had no idea what Fyre was until I saw it on Netflix and then on social media.

Fyre was supposed to be the biggest and grandest music festival in 2017. To the guests, they promised private jets, luxurious villas, meals cooked by celebrity chefs, and the coolest bands and music. What happened were leftover tents, two pieces of brown bread and cheese for lunch, canceled bands, no music, and very little food and water. Guests, who were filthy rich young people, literally fought for food and shelter. It was simply outrageous.

I really think that entrepreneur is a psychopath and charming liar. I don't know, his smile tells something. I feel a little sorry for the guests, but at least they're filthy rich and they can easily recover from it. What's actually sad here is the unpaid staff. They paid $250,000 to Kendall Jenner just to post one stupid Fyre advertisement on IG, and they can't pay the hundreds of workers and the restaurant owner? What's going on with this world?

What's more shocking is the story of one of the staff, where he was willing to perform a sexual act just to save the festival. Shocking.

It is a very interesting and eye-opening documentary. Must watch.

"Fyre" does an excellent job of showing how this "festival" grew from infancy to a complete utter disaster. It incorporates first hand accounts of events that transpired, and delves into the scope of how messed up this whole thing was.

It starts with the facade being fabricated through social media influencers and the logical progression that the "clout" those people had to manufacture hype for something. This definitely is somewhat of a social commentary on the current state of social media, and the actual power of it. I think they said something like 400 influencers posted about this festival to create hype, and it succeeded. But the smoke and mirrors will only get you so far, and the collapse of the entire endeavor is fulfilling to watch, yet sad to the people it ruined in its wake (The Bahamians, for example, that grinded without pay).

The pacing was great, the build up was phenomenal, and the collapse was inevitable. Overall this is a good symposium of how ideas in this day in age aren't enough, and deception can't fix anything.

This one is great for learning about the inner part of Fyre, where Hulu delves more into the 3rd party perspective/social media influence.

I guess not being a social media follower or a rich kid I was unaware of this festival fraud. The whole part of a festival for me is about the camping music and atmosphere such as I have experienced at Glastonbury and other UK music festivals. Hand on heart I can't feel sorry for all the rich kids that got duped specialy after listening to one of them admit to wrecking the large dome like tents and pissing on beds because he didn't want people staying in them near him! However I do feel sorry for the local people who worked hard and not only didn't get paid but also lost their own money in the process I have never heard of Billy McFarland the guy who organised ,lied and in effect stole millions in the process of selling a 5 star music festival experience to the over privalaged and delivering a bag of s***e. The main thing that left me speechless was the sentence that this guy was given,taking into account that whilst on bail he tried to and did sell exclusive tickets to high profile events under another person that were also not genuine ! Apparently this holds a 20 year sentence of which he was given 6 yrs!! WTF so he basically got a slap on the wrist! Wouldn't surprise me if he has a pimped out cell to boot!

WTF is wrong with people? This documentary is very interesting but even shockingly hilarious as you watch the conman put together (ahem, TRY to put together) the greatest festival that never was. This documentary shows how people will fall for a shiny package and a smooth talker, though I'm not sure how so many seemingly intelligent business people were duped by this guy who would pass out on the beach in the middle of the day from drinking. I did feel sorry for the local laborers who were never paid for their back-breaking work and some of the vendors who got screwed out of a lot of money. As for the investors that trusted this guy, how about a little due diligence? This wasn't his first con rodeo. Just bizarre but definitely an entertaining documentary.

You'll laugh at some of the scenes, but this whole thing is a no joke. The collapse of this whole event (it was inevitable since inception), shows that the governments should take necessary steps to prevent financial fraud caused by social media.

This is exactly the right documentary about the social media age and the so called influencers. How a specific guy took advantage of the whole absurdity in order to make a profit and turned out to be a huge crook, taking full exploitation of the morons who are so into the lifestyle of the 21st century - trying to be social media models (or look like them), playing their own little reality show by living the high life. And at the end you're reminded that there were some hard working people, festival professionals and local Bahamians, that worked really hard to pull this off and ended up losing a lot of money plus part of their own dignity. Strong piece of film.

I wasn't that interested in watching a documentary about this festival. But after the reviews I decided to give it a watch. This is a well made documentary that keeps you engaged and while I didn't sympathize with the attendees, I did with the crew, especially the islanders who worked tirelessly on this festival. It is an interesting/entertaining story and I'm glad this was made due to the social statement that I felt this film ultimately made. (There are plenty of docs nowadays that are not engaging and don't need to exist). I haven't seen the Hulu version, nor do I plan too. I trusted the critics on this one.

As someone alienated to Instagram, and those events that I couldn't care less (even having the money), this documentary does it job and takes you on an interesting ride. Hard part is not judging all these people, but as a documentary works great. A slap in the face to influencers / social media consumers.

I think most of us that are up to date on trendy media news heard about this disastrous festival that "took place" in 2017. Was especially looking forward to this film. I did see Hulu's documentary on the same festival which was oddly released during the same week. The Hulu documentary is decent, but I think this one on Netflix covers the matter in a more stronger manner. I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary. Its insane how far this faux festival went all because of social media influencers.

The documentary gives a background of Billy McFarland, an entrepreneur of a brand of credit card called Magnises who comes up with the idea of a luxury musical festival on a serene island in the Bahamas with gourmet food and villas for concert goers. However, the festival was a disaster. There was no money to fund the event, the promotional video was filled with lies. Customers were housed in disaster relief tents that were destroyed from the downpour the day before, there was a severe shortage of toilets, showers. Basically most of what was promised did not take place, and all the musical acts cancelled.

Its a bit comedic. I mean, come on. Rich kids spending an obscene amount of money on a music festival and then having to deal with conditions they did not expect. However, its still a really awful and scary thing that this was able to get to where it did. McFarland has a charming an energetic demeanor but he is a con artist through and through. He can't even explain the extent of the crimes he committed, which you get a grasp of if you watch both documentaries. Also, why in the world would anyone believe Ja Rule in this day and age? My dude spent years in prison for gun charges and tax evasion.

The film shows you the depth of how social media impacts the lives of millennials. All it takes is for popular supermodels to promote an event which they knew nothing about and boom the recipe for a disastrous event occurs. This is a very enjoyable look into the aspects and people involved in the process of people trying to make this impossible festival look and the aftermaths of the disaster.

8/10

Watched this yesterday night and I must say, this is the first time I have heard of FYRE and BILLY MC FARLAND.....the story of an epic failure at its finest is told very truthfully, I do feel for the workers, suppliers and other people who were not paid because Billy and his crew were too way over their heads..

It's also good that they are raising money for the local woman who shelled her own savings so she can pay for some of the workers who were not paid preparing meals...

In the end, a lot of millenials got fooled on this one....I was just wondering why Ja Rule distanced himself from the failure when on the onset he was having a good time and even boasting how FYRE would revolutionize the world with this APP....

And they got an experience. Albeit not the one they were promised. Very interesting and entertaining doc about a subject I knew nothing about. But seriously, who pays thousands of pounds/dollars to see Blink 182 or Ja Rule?

A well made documentary, if apparently not overly balanced due to production involvement of parties actually involved in the original events. There is a lovely dose of schadenfreuden in witnessing what happens the vacuous people sucked in to the social media 'influencer' nonsense but on the flip-side it is pretty heart-breaking to see the effect on the islands workers, local business owners etc.

I watch lots of documentary but never really review them since they all feel the same, but this one is unique, better than Hulu's version and definitely worth a watch. The story is already interesting, but they way the doc was produced made it feel like a movie with real life footage. The fact that there was so much real life footage of the production made it feel so real and so close to the sorry. This feeling of proximity and truth that the documentary presented was something I never really saw. An important part of the story was the use of social media, Instagram mostly, and that part was integrated super smoothly, as we've seen Netflix do a couple of times. Anyways, that plus commentary from the team that actually worked on it, and so many footage of this disaster actually happening, wow really. I also really like the way they presented them as marketing geniuses and brilliant entrepreneur, but none of the authority were actually managers, no organization at all. Anyways go watch this, worth it.

Fyre: 8 out of 10 and Fyre Fraud: 8 out of 10: Two documentaries covering the now infamous Fyre Festival in the Bahamas. Both documentaries consist of plenty of talking heads, promotional footage, behind the scenes footage, and footage from the festival site itself.

On to the questions

So which documentary is better? I gave both documentaries the same score. Both are excellent in their own way and both take a somewhat different look at the events. If I had to choose I would pick the Hulu doc Fyre Fraud.

Why would you pick that documentary? Aren't those are the people that gave money to fraudster Billy McFarland for an interview?: Yes, they are and honestly, they wasted their money. These interview bits are the weakest part of the documentary. What Fyre Fraud does well is it really breaks down Billy's fraud in a way Netflix doesn't. There is a very solid report on his previous business of a "fake" credit card and his ticket broker Ponzi schemes. (Which is, in reality, is why he is in jail along with lying to investors.). It is also more in-depth with the investors to whom he constantly lied to raise more funds for both the Fyre Festival and other ventures.

In addition, the Fyre fraud seems on more solid ground in regards to its expose of influencers and PR firms. It has been noted by others that Billy's PR firm Jerry Media is one of the producers on the Netflix doc. (Though in all fairness it does not escape completely unscathed there either.)

Does the Netflix Doc Fyre do anything better? Yes. The Netflix doc has much better footage particularly of the festival itself. It also focuses more on the outcome for local Bahamian workers that were not paid. Netflix's Fyre also has better behind the scene footage and appears to have more access in regards to both footage and interviews. It also wins on the most outrageous story about the festival. The whole releasing the water from customs sexual favor thing.

Is there really enough material here for one documentary let alone two? Yes. Heck, there is enough for an additional documentary. While both documentaries cover some familiar ground there is plenty of juicy tangents that neither had time to cover. It is actually really neat to watch both documentaries as it gives one a more three-dimensional view of the proceedings. And, let us be honest, there is enough schadenfreude for a tv series.

So everyone in this is either a ripoff artist or a person deserving to get ripped off? Not exactly. First of all, there are some very highly competent people involved. The folks that put out the promotional campaign video and social media blitz did an incredible job. Sure the actual festival itself looked nothing like the video but selling it out in a few days for a first time festival in a foreign country with Blink 182 as a headliner is amazing. That is some Ice selling to Eskimos right there. In addition, the actual application the Fyre festival was meant to promote was, at the very least a good idea. An app that allows private parties to easily search and book available entertainment for the company Christmas party or juniors bar mitzvah certainly is a useful tool. (Many people, including many of the principals of the Fyre company, do forget that the festival was simply supposed to be a marketing event for the app, not a business in and of itself.)

So what is your takeaway? Music festivals are awful. Full stop. There is a reason the music festival scene dies every decade only to be reborn the next. They are awful so you have to wait till a new generation of idiots grows up to learn that hard lesson first hand.

I mean even if they were able to pull this off you still just spent $1500 to sleep in a tent on gravel with no air conditioning to listen to Blink 182.

Heck most music festivals, even the ones that manage to have bands show up, are as bad or worse than the Fyre festival. One of the interviewees has been roundly mocked in comparing the troubles Fyre had to Woodstock. He really isn't that much off. I mean food and water ran out in the first day at Woodstock and the army had to airlift supplies. Plus I don't recall the organizers at Woodstock offering fancy tents with air mattresses. Okay fine Woodstock had great music as well as Sha Na Na and it makes a great film and it defined a generation. The interviewee seemed young maybe he meant Woodstock '99.

Both documentaries are great in their own way and both introduce topics, worlds, and trends that are interesting after the documentary has concluded. I would recommend both so you can take in all the Fyre Festival goodness. Now if I can only figure out why I keep calling it the "fry" festival instead of the "fire" festival we will be all good.