While McFarland knew little about staging a concert, he knew plenty
about fund-raising and social media. In fact, Fyre’s Instagram-fueled
kickoff, in December, was one of the more eye-popping social-media
campaigns in recent memory. McFarland had met his share of models and
their managers, and he wanted to get as many as possible to promote the
festival on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Luckily the supermodel
Bella Hadid—represented by IMG Models—expressed interest. “They got
one of the big models, Bella, and she told [other IMG models] how
fun this island trip was going to be, and they all decided to go do the
shoot,” says the downtown consultant. “It was this incredible stroke
of luck. That’s what put the festival on the map.”
The slick promotional video was only the beginning. By one count,
McFarland arranged for some 400 social-media “influencers,” including
more models, surfers, D.J.’s, and even a few football players, to take
part in the kickoff announcement. Many were paid, though few would ever
disclose it. Probably the largest outlay, a reported $250,000, went to
the model and reality-television star Kendall Jenner, whom McFarland had
long admired. “Billy was always going, ‘I love Kendall—Kendall’s the
one for me,’ ” remarks the downtown consultant. “In a weird way, this
was all about getting Kendall.”
On December 12, McFarland’s influencers, including Jenner, all
simultaneously posted a mysterious orange square. Clicking it started
the promotional video of the supermodels frolicking and dancing on a
beach. “Two Transformative Weekends,” the copy read. “An Immersive
Music Festival . . . On a Remote and Private Island in The Exumas
. . . The Best in Food, Art, Music and Adventure . . . On the
Boundaries of the Impossible.”
“You were like, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ ” says a money manager for a
famous rapper. “I mean, it was perfectly executed. It’s one of the
greatest social-media campaigns I’ve ever seen. They got the most
beautiful women in the world, with the largest social following. And
then the photo shoot . . . It was just incredible.”
This manager had no clue who was behind the audacious festival.
Intrigued, he made some calls, and before long he was talking to
McFarland, who pitched him to invest. “He was a little brash, a little
bro-ey, a little fratty, but not a total asshole,” the manager says.
“He was pitching me this app, which was the sort of thing I had seen
before. Then he kind of randomly throws out there that his partner in
all this is Ja Rule, which floored me. I would’ve assumed a guy like
Kanye West or Jay Z was behind the scenes. . . . Anyway, I knew we
wouldn’t invest in it. I was surprised at all the artists who committed,
because we didn’t take this seriously at all.”
At least initially, McFarland found no shortage of investors. Perhaps
the best known was the fashion executive Carola Jain, who is believed to
have invested in Fyre Media, putting together a loan of as much as $4
million. McFarland was able to lease a suite of offices on Lispenard
Street, in Tribeca.
“I remember the first time I walked in that place, just this huge
space, three stories high, a mezzanine and kitchens and offices, all
empty. No furniture, just folding tables, nobody working, Billy and his
posse hanging out in their ‘boardroom’—it was definitely a big
frat-house kind of thing,” says the downtown consultant.