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The voice of and for USM students

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The voice of and for USM students

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Outrageous Fyre Festival crashes and burns

Outrageous+Fyre+Festival+crashes+and+burns

Too bourgeois for Coachella, won’t go anywhere without your yacht or want to hang out on an island? Well Fyre Festival is the “lituation” for you– or at least it was supposed to be.

The festival was organized by rapper Ja Rule and his business partner Billy McFarland.

Fyre Festival was supposed to be a weekend in the Bahamas—basically paradise, with “the best in food, art, music and adventure.”

Guests shelled out cash for a hefty fee of $3,200 to $4,400 for a plane ticket from Miami to the island of Great Exuma.

Some even paid up to $250,000 per person.

They were expecting to stay in lavish geodesic domes, feast on amazing food and enjoy the likes of artists such as Migos, Major Lazer, Rae Sremmurd and Blink 182.

When guests arrived on April 28 to what they thought would be an epic two-weekend festival, they were met with everything but that.

The partygoers were met with a categorical disaster, to say the least.

Amenities, gourmet meals, musical acts and luxurious housing were nowhere in sight.

“So Fyre Fest is a complete disaster. Mass chaos. No organization. No one knows where to go. There are no villas, just a disaster tent city,” @WNFIV tweeted.

“The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing. #fyrefestival,” @trev4president tweeted.

Over 6,000 people were expected to fly but only about 1,500 were able to because it got too sketchy, according to People.com.

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has now spoken out.

They offered their deepest apologies to those who traveled to Exuma for the event.

“We are extremely disappointed in the way the events unfolded yesterday with the Fyre Festival,” they said. “Hundreds of visitors to Exuma were met with total disorganization and chaos.”

Amidst all the controversy, Blink-182 pulled out of the festival because they felt the environment wasn’t fit for their performance.

“We’re not confident that we would have what we need to give you the quality of performances we always give our fans,” they said in a statement.

In a situation such as this, guests would think they could just pick up and catch the next flight home.

They were shocked to find that they not only could have massive delays, but some were even stranded.

The festival canceled its inbound charter flights to the Exumas as well but festival officials ensured that refunds would be dispersed.

“Things got off to an unexpected start at day one of Fyre Festival,” a statement posted to the festival’s Instagram said. It added that it was “working to comfortably accommodate guests,” would refund those whose inbound flights it had canceled, and that it would soon post a revised itinerary for the remainder of this weekend and for next.

Fyre Festival’s website now states that the festival “is being postponed until we can further assess if and when we are able to create the high-quality experience we envisioned.”

“Due to circumstances out of our control, the physical infrastructure was not in place on time and we are unable to fulfill on that vision safely and enjoyably for our guests. At this time, we are working tirelessly to get flights scheduled and get everyone off of Great Exuma and home safely as quickly as we can,” the website said.

In the end, guests were promised an experience of a lifetime and definitely got an experience but not a positive one.

If this year’s attendees want, they will be able to attend next year’s festival with free VIP passes, according to Fyre Festival officials.


 

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