There are many different ways to identify something as an abject failure. For example, the past week has given us two separate documentaries itemizing the woes of the now-infamous and legendary Fyre Festival.
It is safe to say the event may have missed expectations.
Both Netflix and Hulu go to great lengths to give us visual histories of what went wrong in unique enough styles, but both unknowingly present a difficult question that goes unanswered: what does all this carnage mean for the whatever moonshot comes next?
Hulu’s “Fyre Fraud” heavily emphasizes the social media campaign outsourced by Fyre Media to Jerry Media, and for good reason. The festival itself was a disaster, replete with hilarious overpromising, distraught influencers, and an unflappable and completely inexperienced leader. However, the documentary makes it clear the concept of the festival would not have come this close to reality without a multimillion-dollar social media campaign that included the likes of Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and dozens of influencers touting what looked like the party of a lifetime in the Bahamas.
For months, there was no evidence to back up the organizers’ and spokesteam’s claims that there was going to be a festival featuring Blink-182, five-star catering and luxury villas. Both films consult various event planning experts who lambaste the project’s leaders who simultaneously partied every other day and set a four-month timeline for an undertaking that would have required 18 months at the minimum.
According to Hulu, the power of social media influencers was on full display when the festival essentially sold out all ticket packages in a matter of days.
In spite of these shortcomings and growing panic within the organization, the social media campaign continued to publish idyllic images with models and beaches counting down to the festival. Based on those visuals alone, the premise makes sense. If you had the chance to bump elbows with millennial royalty and make some dents in your concert bucket list on the white sands of the Bahamas, wouldn’t you?
Even just 10 minutes of research into the festival would have returned a resounding “no.” Billy McFarland carries many titles throughout the course of the documentaries, but the totality of his missteps paint him as the ringleader of an unbelievably destructive circus. He is the direst lesson from “Fyre Fraud,” which centered the film around an exclusive interview with McFarland. In short, events like these are behemoths that over-privileged and overconnected sociopaths can turn into catastrophes.
Netflix’s documentary takes a different approach. The social media approach is not demonized, but rather the story itself is told and produced by the same Jerry Media that ran Fyre Festival’s social media campaign. Netflix (and Jerry Media) differentiate this documentary before the viewer even presses play, as the title alone sets a contrasting tone. “FYRE: The Greatest Party that Never Happened” brings to mind a dream that was a couple steps away from being Project X on the beach.
Netflix paints a picture similar to Hulu, taking special pains to highlight the executives and construction workers that had their lives altered by the festival.
“FYRE” goes to remarkable lengths to detail just how much financial idiocy occurred to get Fyre Festival to the point of no return. Less than a week after its release, the Netflix documentary has been memed to high heaven in large part because of the utter lack of foresight that led to laughable financial and ethical issues.
Its message does not decry the use of social media to mislead the public, but instead teaches that no amount of social glitz and can-do attitudes can overcome incompetence. Hopefully, McFarland comes to understand that as he sits in jail for six years on wire fraud charges.
The fact that there were two documentaries made to chronicle this fiasco is evidence enough that too many mistakes were made for just one sitting.
Among Fyre’s many transgressions, the company cost the Bahamas millions of dollars, as is painfully explained by a caterer who was never paid the more than $150,000 owed to her.
Two whole films are not enough to tell the entire Fyre story, but there are more than enough lessons to be taken from the documentaries. If you are planning on throwing the party of the decade, plan it more than a couple months in advance. Perhaps try to dedicate more money to infrastructure than you do to alcohol. Don’t lie to investors and customers. Don’t just assume that being a privileged American will get you out of any sticky situation.
It shouldn’t take two documentaries, comprehensive media coverage and a half of hindsight to realize that Fyre Festival should have been prevented at a number of crossroads. From this point forward, we can only hope that Billy McFarland’s mistakes will give the next well-intentioned enterprise pause. will they throw an incredible part or will they be remembered as one of the most dangerous corporate laughingstocks ever?
Jonah Baker can be reached at arg-opinion@uidaho.edu or on Twitter @jonahpbaker