Concertgoers who showed up to the Bahamian island of Great Exuma in 2017 for Fyre Festival were not greeted with luxurious landscapes and supermodels, as advertised. Instead, a wasteland awaited them.
The Cinemart, Billboard, Hulu and Mic have now teamed up to tell the story of the disgraced festival in a new docuseries, featuring an exclusive interview with the event’s organizer, Billy McFarland. The series, which will be released exclusively on Hulu in 2019, will recount the timeline leading up to the festival — and the aftermath.
A year after the disaster, McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February and another two counts of fraud in March. He faces up to 40 years in prison. The eight-hour tell-all interview took place prior to his most recent arrest on June 12, when new charges were brought against him for allegedly engaging in a scheme to sell fake tickets to concerts and sporting events. The organizer dives into his entire life throughout the interview, all the way up to his sentencing. He has not spoken to any other publication to share his side of the story.
“Before we had the worst luck, we had the best luck,” McFarland says in the interview. “So many things had to go right to make Fyre this big of a failure.”
The docuseries will also feature interviews from Bahamian locals, festivalgoers, vendors and investors, as well as never-before-seen footage of the festival and leaked documents.
The Cinemart is leading production with directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason and executive producer Michael Gasparro. John Amato and Dana Miller are executive producing for Billboard, while Angela Freedman and Sharmi Ghandi are EPing for Mic.
