Fyre Festival 2, the planned follow-up to 2017’s infamously failed Fyre Festival, has been canceled. Its organizers are now shopping the brand and its assets to interested buyers.
“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,” organizer Billy McFarland wrote on the event’s website Wednesday.
The first Fyre Fest was on Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas, with visitors promised luxury goods, services and accommodations along with appearances by high-profile guests. What they got fell so far below what was promised that McFarland was convicted of fraud and sentenced to six years in prison in 2018.
As of 2022, he was also wanted in the Bahamas as a fugitive, according to Eyewitness News.
McFarland was released early in 2022 and went about trying to organize a successful Fyre Festival 2 in the hopes of making up for the 2017 fiasco. Selling the brand, he says, is the best way to achieve that.
“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,” McFarland wrote.
The new event was scheduled for May 30-June 2 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, though city officials said this month they had not agreed for it to be held there.
Last week, after the event was postponed, McFarland was still optimistic that the event could be relocated and held. He also disputed Playa del Carmen authorities and posted purported screenshots of emails and documents he and other organizers had exchanged with officials as part of organizing the event.
McFarland said that media attention caused Playa del Carmen officials to get cold feet and claimed in his message on the Fyre Fest website that several Caribbean nations had approached him and other organizers to try and host Fyre Fest 2.
The brand’s assets are listed under an auction page on the Fyre Fest website.
“The next chapter of FYRE will be bigger, better, and built to last without me at the helm,” McFarland wrote.
