Billy McFarland Says He Wants to Do Fyre Festival Again

Fresh out of prison, the infamous Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland appears on Sofia with an F and says he wants a redo for “Fyre Festival 1.5.”

In recent years, Fyre Festival has become known as the music festival that never actually happened. These events (or lack of) were made famous by Netflix’s documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened which aired in 2019. Given the severity of his crimes and the notoriety of his failures, many people are still asking today, what happened to the Fyre Festival guy?

Well, the entrepreneur was sentenced to six years in prison on wire fraud charges. Recently released after serving four years in prison, Billy sat down with Sofia Franklyn for an episode of her podcast, Sofia with an F to explain where he’s been, and where he plans to go. 

For context, Billy McFarland defrauded investors out of $26 million, and was tasked with paying them back upon his release. In addition to plans to pay off his debts, Billy told Sofia that he would like to throw a “Fyre Festival 1.5.” 

In response to Sofia’s question (and perhaps, a lot of people’s question), “Are you going to do a Fyre Festival 2.0?” Billy responded, “I can’t right now, because I’m on probation. But in my life, I have to do it. And my entire goal is like, do Fyre Festival 1.5 because the first one was half done.”

He continued to explain that he would like to fund the entire festival after all of his debits are paid back. “No money’s allowed,” he said.

Billy McFarland still has a lot of obstacles ahead of him before he can give Fyre Festival another shot. But, how is he going to come up with all of the money to pay off his debts and fully fund a festival? He doesn’t give a specific answer to that question, but he has several businesses in the pipeline which he hopes will become profitable–one of them being an AI-powered dating app called MAIT. 

Listen to the full story “Fyre with an F” ft. Billy McFarland on Sofia with an F below:

Featured Photo Credit: MARK LENNIHAN/AP