The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

New Jersey Computer Whiz Kid Discovers That Real Life Isn’t Like Web Design

Posted on | April 30, 2017 | 1 Comment

Billy McFarland, allegedly a genius.

You’re young. You’re smart. You do computer code. You attended a private university where the tuition is $51,960 a year, but dropped out your freshman year to start your own web company.

You like rap music and made friends with a popular rapper, so you get this genius idea: Let’s have a giant music festival in the Bahamas!

Total disaster ensues, because you don’t know the first damned thing about how to organize a music festival, especially when you promised to provide luxury amenities for people on a tropical island:

A luxury festival on a private beach on Great Exuma, the Bahamas, has descended into chaos with reports of festival goers trying to leave the site being locked in the airport.
The three-day Fyre Festival, co-organised by Ja Rule and tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland’s Fyre Media company, was promoted via Instagram by a host of supermodels, including Hailey Baldwin and Bella Hadid. . . .
Tickets to the luxury event included a return flight from Miami on a custom, VIP-configured Boeing 737 and guests were to stay in eco-friendly geodesic domes.
Planned activities include morning yoga and meditation on the beach, as well as fitness classes. Pusha T, Tyga, Major Lazer, Disclosure (DJ set), and Blink 182 were all booked to headline at the event.
But Fyre Festival, which was due to start on Friday, has been deemed a “disaster” and a “scam” via social media, with images from the site not matching the luxury that customers were promised. . . .

This “luxury” event turned out to be a wretched tent city with inadequate toilet facilities, more like a refugee camp than the kind of place you’d expect to find international supermodels hanging out. How bad was it? Promises of gourmet meals prepared by a famous chef turned out to be a cheese sandwich in a styrofoam container.

Now the would-be festival promoter has issued a lame press release full of self-justifying excuses, promising how huge and awesome the event is going to be “next year.” Except I’ve got a sneaky suspicion there isn’t going to be a “next year,” because boy genius Billy McFarland is likely to be bankrupt and maybe on his way to jail by then.

Don’t expect Bella Hadid to visit you in jail, Billy.

 

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One Response to “New Jersey Computer Whiz Kid Discovers That Real Life Isn’t Like Web Design”

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