Putting out the PR “Fyre”: Will Festival’s Comeback Save Its Reputation?
Published on February 03, 2025, at 5:30 p.m.
by Isabella Avila.
It was supposed to be the festival experience of a lifetime — luxury beachside villas on a private island, A-list guests, the world’s top entertainers, the list goes on. Instead, the 2017 Fyre Festival became the poster child for event disasters and scams, leaving customers sleeping in disaster relief tents and limited food. Now, Billy McFarland, founder of Fyre, hopes to bring back the exclusive festival for an unprecedented comeback in 2025. But will organizers build back positive public relations for the event?

“Fyre Festival II is happening April 25, 2025,” organizer and fraudster Billy McFarland said to TODAY. The festival is set to take place on a private island off the coast of Mexico, but other details have been vague. However, as of September 2024, over 1,200 people have applied to receive Fyre Festival II tickets, according to Fortune. And high promises from the organizer have not changed, with tickets for sale at the casual price of $1.1 million for a scuba diving excursion with McFarland himself.
The 2017 Fyre Festival generated an incredible amount of negative PR for everyone involved, including the influencers paid to advertise the event, which eventually led to the laws surrounding influencer marketing. Now, aside from a brief press tour in September 2024, there is little to no promotion of the festival and details are hard to come by, which could make things tricky for organizers trying to sell the experience.
Even with the high number of ticket applications and 500 tickets already sold, people seem to be in it for the plot, good or bad. Comments under McFarland’s announcement of the second-chance event were mainly negative: “If anyone goes you have no one to blame but yourself,” one user said. However, other users expressed interest in going but couldn’t justify or afford the high-price tickets.

Because of how the festival ended in 2017, influencers and VIPs have publicly shamed the event, which could make it difficult for Fyre to connect with its target audience. Given that the first Fyre Festival was only planned for four months, maybe the extra time for planning Fyre Festival II can make all the difference in creating a successful event. And if McFarland and organizers can pull the event off, it could be one of the greatest PR comebacks of the decade. But then again, it’s Fyre Festival.
Will Fyre Festival 2 live up to the high promises and regain public trust? Only time will tell.