‘It was an absolute Fyre Festival.’ Before Miami contestants were enlisted to save the world, another group signed up in Montreal. But where were the cameras? ‘There are cameras on everyone, everywhere,’ says an activist who declined to be named. ‘But only one person’s on camera, so that’s a hard line.’
You would think that the media attention would be a factor behind more ‘Fyre’-style events, but you would be wrong. Although some people in Miami have had similar experiences, there have been no calls for similar events here. And even if there had been, say, a group of ‘millions of dollars’ pouring into Miami would have the same effect.
It’s not clear how far an influx of cash would have spread the fame and the wealth. But what is clear is that no significant events have been organised.
In some cases, celebrities have been asked to participate, but there has been no ‘Fyre Media’ of this size, and thus no such celebrity-led events. The main reason is that the media attention the event would bring to the city did not outweigh the benefits to be gained from it.
Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was interviewed about the event by the BBC in 2016 and claimed that it brought $18 million in revenue (though the figure is disputed) to Miami. The story said that he got ‘an enormous amount of media attention and positive attention to our city’. But the ‘positive attention to our city’ was minimal, given the small number of people who have ever seen the footage that is likely to be available. No one has claimed that there were any ‘millions of dollars’ being spent by ‘Fyre’ investors (though that has been suggested) and that there was much less than $100,000 spent by ‘Fyre’ team members. (This is an estimate based on
