The memory of 2017’s fraudulent Fyre Festival may have been swept under the rug by the slew of public scams that followed, from Elizabeth Holmes to fake socialite Anna Delvey. But the creator of the legendary Fyre Festival that never was has served his time, and he’s already back with new ideas.
Billy McFarland, the fraudster and entrepreneur who cofounded the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017, is now a free man after four years of prison and six months of house arrest ended last September. McFarland was convicted of several fraudulent schemes and making false statements to authorities.
But prison was far from time poorly spent, according to McFarland, who claims he used his time behind bars, including 10 months of solitary confinement as punishment after he participated in a podcast using a prison phone, cooking up his next business project: leveraging his marketing résumé for startup clients. And this time, he’s promising it isn’t a scam.
McFarland has been “plotting how to make it up to everyone” over the past four years, he wrote in a tweet Sunday. He admitted that while he “broke the law,” his marketing credentials are indisputable after executing “one of the most viral social media campaigns. Ever.”
McFarland’s tweet was referring to the marketing campaign behind the Fyre Festival, which drummed up massive interest in an event that turned into the polar opposite of expectations.
In 2017, he charged would-be festival-goers up to $12,000 a ticket to...
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