Entertainment

Fyre Festival: 7 Facts You May Not Know

By Grunge Staff/

If you don't have your tickets to Fyre Festival yet, well ... congratulations, you've saved yourself several thousand dollars at the very least. The would-be extravaganza was planned for a private island in the Bahamas, but it turned out to be a dumpster fyre. Here are the facts you need to know.

It was gonna be EPIC

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This wasn't just supposed to be any ol' music festival. Fyre Festival was billed as the "next Coachella" and as the "cultural experience of the decade." Those are big shoes to fill! If you're planning to be either of those things, you better bring your A game and then some. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

The tickets were not cheap

Tickets for the epic conflagration started at $450 for a basic day pass and went up to $250,000. So those who could burn the cash to attend are not being characterized kindly.



The accommodations were not as promised

Anytime someone promises you a comfy bed and a roof over your head, you kind of ... well ... expect that, right? In what was almost certainly a paid promotion, a December article on Bustle raved about the upcoming event, calling the lodging "a dream come true." As Bustle put it, "The only reason you should be sleeping outside at Fyre Festival is because you want to be. Even the cheapest accommodations include a comfy bed and quality roof over your head. ... No tents needed."

That's not a joke. They really wrote that.

The food was not gourmet

"Quick, what else am I missing?" you ask eagerly. Bustle also promised the food would be "top-notch." In their words: "Foodies have just as much to look forward to as music fans. The dining experience is highlighted as a key feature of the festival. Who doesn't want to spend a weekend eating high-end cuisine on a private island?"

Hey, food is food, but most people probably don't think of bread and warmed-over cheese slices when you offer them a gourmet dining experience on a private island.

Ja Rule was the big face of the event

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OK, so this wasn't supposed to be your Uncle Benny's backyard hoedown. It was supposed to be a big effing deal. That's why it had such big star power backing it: stars like Ja Rule! Ja Rule was one of the main faces for the event, but some of the recent tweets in his feed about Fyre Festival just lead to now-deleted Instagram posts. Sounds like he's cleaning it up.

Kendall Jenner and other models helped promote it

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Kendall Jenner ... girl, you gotta get it together. After flying to the Bahamas with a bunch of other models last year to take promotional photos for the Fyre bomb, Jenner posted a photo to her Instagram to encourage her millions of followers to buy tickets. She's now deleted that Instaburn, and she hasn't yet commented publicly on the little marshmallow roast.

But since it follows so closely on the heels of her last PR gaffe, this is probably not the comeback she was imagining. Not even a month ago, we were all wondering what Jenner was thinking when she filmed a (quickly pulled) Pepsi ad that many people found insensitive and offensive. Maybe she was thinking, "If I take my payment in Pepsi products, I'll have something to drink when I'm super thirsty down in the Bahamas in a few weeks."

Ja Rule seems to feel pretty bad about it

Several hours after the story erupted across social media (and everywhere else), Ja Rule tweeted an apology and said he's working to get everyone off the island safely. He also said he didn't know how everything went wrong and that he "wanted this to be an amazing event."

That's all well and good; it would be weird for someone like Ja Rule to try to scam everyone. But when did he start seeing signs of smoke? The embers of this forest fire must have been smoldering for a while, right? What did he think was going to happen?

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