Fyre Fest II is really happening — here's everything that went wrong at the first one

In the spring of 2017, a brand-new luxury music festival experience captivated all of social media. The event's previous social media coverage featured the hottest influencers living it up along a beautiful beach -- but the actual festival turned out to be a bust.

The saga of Fyre Fest unfolded in real time on social media. Attendees who had paid thousands of dollars to attend the event were stranded on an island with very little food, no water, and insufficient lodging.

How did an event that took in millions of dollars dissolve into such a disaster? And why are people willing to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to attend Fyre Festival II after festival organizer Billy McFarland was sentenced to prison for the debacle?

What was Fyre Fest?

The now-infamous Fyre Festival, which has been the subject of both Hulu and Netflix documentaries, was billed as a luxury music festival taking place on a Bahamian island rumored to have once been owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar. The event was the brainchild of Billy McFarland, who teamed up with rapper Ja Rule in order to promote the company’s app for booking musical acts.

The festival was a hot topic among young, wealthy millennials. Social media influencers like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajjowski were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote a music festival that, in the end, had absolutely no organization or, according to the crew, funding.

In the end, every band that was billed to perform had to cancel their appearance due to non-payment. And when festival-goers arrived on the island of Great Exuma, all they found were some poorly-furnished FEMA tents and cheap cheese sandwiches.

In March of 2018, McFarland pled guilty to defrauding investors and ticket holders. While he was out on bail, he was also caught attempting to defraud a ticket vendor for selling fake tickets to high-profile events. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay a $26 million settlement.

Influencers who promoted the event have also found themselves paying out settlements. After receiving a whopping $250,000 to promote the festival on Instagram, Kendall Jenner was made to pay a $90,000 settlement. Doing the math, Jenner can certainly afford the hit. McFarland may not be so lucky.

Perhaps he's hoping to pay that settlement off with the revenue he makes from Fyre Festival II.

@pyrtbilly

FYRE Festival 2 is LIVE!