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Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland to return to the Bahamas for treasure hunt
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 8 November 2022
Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland has announced his first new venture after being released from prison. And – in a move that will surely not prove to be disastrous – he’s heading back to the Bahamas.
McFarland, of course, was imprisoned in 2018 after being convicted of two counts of wire fraud in relation to finances raised for his doomed Bahamas-based Fyre Festival. He served four years of a six year sentence. And with $26 million still to repay to those he defrauded, he needs to find a money-making scheme or two. Preferably legal this time.
His big plan is to launch a treasure hunt back in the Bahamas, a venture that he has been teasing on TikTok recently, and which he’s calling PYRT. It will see participants try to track down 99 bottles containing messages in order to win the grand prize.
He recently described the project as “a whole lot bigger than anything I’ve ever tried before”, which doesn’t really bode well. Now, we’re not saying that this whole thing will definitely end in complete disaster. But when it does, the good news is that there will be a documentary film crew there to capture it all.
According to Deadline, a new documentary about McFarland’s life after his release from prison and the whole PYRT project is already in production – it’s called ‘After The Fyre’ and is being made for Apple TV+. It follows, of course, Hulu’s ‘Fyre Fraud’ and Netflix’s ‘Fyre’, which chronicled the collapse of the Fyre Festival in 2017.
The new film is being directed by Ample Entertainment co-founders Ari Mark and Phil Lott. Commenting, Mark says: “As we continue to aggressively cultivate our library of films, we’re generating IP-driven, must-see content that will resonate with viewers. ‘After The Fyre’ is the perfect example of an in-house Ample production that is both premium and broad”.
VP Acquisitions at Freemantle Media – which is financing the documentary – Harry Gamsu adds: “After a considerable amount of time in solitary, millennial’s favourite conman Billy McFarland has re-emerged, energised and with an even more audacious plan than the last as he looks to clear his name and repay his debtors. This is the doc-sequel audiences have been crying out for and we’re delighted to have partnered with Ample to make it happen”.
Whether all this can make McFarland enough money to pay off his debt is unclear, although it seems unlikely. And so we await to see what other schemes he comes up with.
