Billy McFarland reveals the Fyre Festival brand is going up for sale.
In a detailed statement released Wednesday (April 23), the founder of the notorious brand acknowledged the festival’s rocky history and the widespread backlash about its potential comeback.
Now, after two years of attempting to resurrect the festival, he and his team are ready “to pass the torch.”
Billy McFarland announces the Fyre Festival brand is hitting the market.
“We knew that FYRE was big, but we didn’t realize just how massive the wave would become. That wave has brought us here: to a point where we know it’s time to call for assistance,” wrote McFarland. “This brand is bigger than any one person and bigger than what I’m able to lead on my own. It’s a movement. And it deserves a team with the scale, experience, and infrastructure to realize its potential.”
“We have decided the best way to accomplish our goals is to sell the FYRE Festival brand, including its trademarks, IP, digital assets, media reach, and cultural capital – to an operator that can fully realize its vision,” he added.
Meanwhile, Shawn Rech, President and co-founder of Chris Hansen’s TruBlu Crime Network has officially launched Fyre Music Streaming Ventures, LLC, snagging the rights to use the FYRE brand for a new fan-curated music streaming platform, according to a press release. It’s an Ohio-based company “aiming to disrupt the music media space with a fan-curated streaming network” and is “focused entirely on music discovery, fandom, and storytelling.
McFarland is likely to stay involved. The Fyre Music Network plans to launch its website and mobile apps on Thanksgiving Day 2025, with FAST channels following later.
Years after the notoriously failed event’s collapse in 2017 and his prison release in 2022 after pleading guilty to wire fraud, McFarland announced plans for a Fyre Festival 2.0 and a Broadway musical in May 2023. At the time, he claimed financial backers were working with him on ways to pay back his debts and pull off a new festival on a Caribbean island.
Tickets for Fyre Festival II went on sale three months later with the event advertised for the Caribbean on December 6, 2024, with prices from $499 to $7,999. No artist lineup was announced, but the event promised pop-ups, film screenings, and other exclusive but vague experiences.
McFarland told NBC News in Sept. 2024 that the event was pushed to April 25, 2025 and would happen on a private island off Mexico’s coast. Tickets ranged from $1,400 to $1.1 million with promises of luxury perks like yachts and scuba diving.
The festival location changed twice, originally set for Isla Mujeres in Mexico before moving to Playa del Carmen after officials claimed they knew nothing about the event.
Fyre Festival’s Instagram fired back, saying they had been working with officials since early March 2025.
Last week, Fyre Festival II was postponed indefinitely with ticket buyers getting refunds and the option to rebuy tickets later.
“While I’m incredibly excited, I can’t risk a repeat of what happened in Playa Del Carmen, where support quickly turned into public distancing once media attention intensified,” McFarland said in Wednesday’s statement. “For FYRE Festival 2 to succeed, it’s clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently, bringing the vision to life on this incredible island.”
“I’ve stood by my team, our partners, and our fans since Day 1 of FYRE Festival 2. Giving control of the brand to a new group is the most responsible way to follow through on what we set out to do: build a global entertainment brand, host a safe and legendary event, and continue to pay restitution to those who are owed from the first festival,” he added.
Fyre Festival’s original 2017 version promised a luxury experience but ended in disaster and became the subject of documentaries on Netflix and Hulu.
