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    Fyre Festival

    You can follow this on Twitter but the usual suspects picking up the story too.

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/apr/28/bahamas-drama-luxury-fyre-festival-turns-into-chaos

    Person puts on music festival in the Bahamas. Pays lots of "influencers" to market it on Instagram. People buy tickets for $1500 - $12,000 a pop for luxury tents and catered food. Ends up with something looking like a refugee camp and the top quality food is a cheese butty thrown together in a polystyrene box.

    Had not to feel a little sorry for a bunch of kids who seem to have just been ripped off, but a bunch of trust fund idiots finding themselves in the Hunger Games seems to have its own schaudenfraude.

    #2
    Fyre Festival

    Luxury festivals are a bizarre concept to start with. Festivals aren't my thing but the old model of putting up with moderate discomfort, with likeminded people, to watch some bands you like was at least understandable. The lifestyled versions now, whether Radio 4 listeners dream family holiday or high end music video, are just ridiculous.

    There is something about the shortfall between aspiration and reality that makes this kind of story funny. The crap Winter Wonderland is as much part of Christmas as tinsel these days. It can't be very nice for parents with disappointed children, caveat emptor aside, but a photo of a mud flat with loo roll snowbanks and a pony wearing fake reindeer horns is always amusing.

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      #3
      Fyre Festival

      I grew up in Colne, with the Blues Festival over the August Bank Holiday weekend. This gave me a) a love of blues music and b) the knowledge that even moving from stage to stage before heading back to my own bed was enough of a faff to put me off even contemplating trying it elsewhere.

      Hell, even spending four hours in the same venue makes me antsy.

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        #4
        Fyre Festival

        Paying that much money to see Blink 182, you kind of get what you deserve.

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          #5
          Fyre Festival

          Benjm wrote: It can't be very nice for parents with disappointed children, caveat emptor aside, but a photo of a mud flat with loo roll snowbanks and a pony wearing fake reindeer horns is always amusing.
          I was bored at the arse-end of a conference call so I started thumbing through this thread on my phone. This bit here had me chuckling like a crazy old woman on a park bench, which was more than a little embarrassing at the time.

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            #6
            Fyre Festival

            Thanks, WOM - may your instagrammable experiences forever glitter.

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              #7
              Fyre Festival

              I can't believe that Ja Rule wasn't able to pull this off.

              There is a Twitter account that was warning people that this was a scam starting a month ago.
              https://twitter.com/FyreFraud

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                #8
                Fyre Festival

                Yeah...well...after Charles Ponzi was exposed as a fraud, there was still a line around the block of people waiting to give him their money to invest.

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                  #9
                  Convicted Fyre Festival fraudster arrested for new fraudulent events scheme. I'll give him this much - he's not a quitter.

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                    #10
                    There is so much dumb money sloshing around at the moment, it must be really hard for the grifters to restrain themselves.

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                      #11
                      Two marks awarded USD 25 million each (which they will never collect)

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                        #12
                        https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/1050472340897841152

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                          #13
                          McFarland gets six years in prison.

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                            #14
                            Watching the Netflix documentary - I haven't even got to the bit where it all turns to chaos and I'm already incredulous.

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                              #15
                              What a bunch of dicks. Everyone really bar the locals.

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                                #16
                                I watched the doc the other evening. The exploitation of the locals was abysmal. The restaurant owner who lost her savings catering to the the rich wankers marooned on the island is particularly sad. What's amazing though is how easy it is sell an idea to a supposedly media savvy audience (and the tech-pros involved) based solely on one high-end video and a load of bullshit.

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                                  #17
                                  Coked out models and blue sky and white sand showing tech bros to be less than sophisticated. At least there is a crowd finder for the restaurant owner that was down 50 grand of her savings after the influencer fucks turned up.

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                                    #18
                                    If it wasn't for the poor locals this story would be perfect in every way

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                      Coked out models and blue sky and white sand showing tech bros to be less than sophisticated. At least there is a crowd funder for the restaurant owner that was down 50 grand of her savings after the influencer fucks turned up.
                                      I'm glad to hear that - she came across as a lovely person. I'm also still a little stunned at the Evian water story.

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                                        #20
                                        Yeah, did the head of customs reallly want fellatio from a guy in his 50s? How the hell did he subtly intimate that in bribe negotiations?

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                          I didn't know that part of the story til I watched the documentary and that was actually the weirdest part of the whole thing - he was on bail and not only did he start a whole new scam (using the contact details of the Fyre ticket buyers*) he got someone to film him doing it, and then not only that but some of the suckers fell for it.

                                          * in fact an article I read which dated from just after Fyre stated that the organisers had sent out email to customers asking for their phone number so they could ring and discuss the refund details - so even in the immediate aftermath they were planning ahead for their next grift.

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                                            #22
                                            I watched this last night. It was all absolutely astonishing. The Evian story was probably the biggest eye opener - and not just the blow-job part of it; also the fact that the import duty on water came to nearly $200k!

                                            As implied by Sits, apart from the locals who were screwed out of cash, it appears that everyone involved in this - either organising or attending - were in the top one percentile of douches. Even the app design team who were trying to distance themselves from the actual festival appeared to right at the pinnacle end of arsehole tech douche absolutely convinced of their own genius and that their re-design of the wheel is going to make them billionaires.

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                                              #23
                                              ...particularly the guy who gleefully described how they didn't want neighbours so went round wrecking neighbouring tents and pissing on mattresses.

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                                                #24
                                                There are two documentaries on Fyre right now. One is on Hulu and one is on Netflix. Supposedly, the Netflix one is better, but the Hulu one has an interview with the main crook (which they probably paid for).

                                                I haven't seen either. There's nothing particularly new about all of this. The tools are new - social media, video, etc. - but there have always been conmen and there probably always will be and there always be fools that are soon parted with their money.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
                                                  ...particularly the guy who gleefully described how they didn't want neighbours so went round wrecking neighbouring tents and pissing on mattresses.
                                                  Yeah. How the fuck he agreed to be interviewed for this, and then actually said that...

                                                  HP - I'm not sure that they're simple crooks and conmen. Instead they appear to be people with massive egos, no self awareness. And people who've bought into modern business bullshit without buying into the throwback business idea of having an actual product. They think that if you say "We're a solutions company, not a problems company" and "Just get it done" often enough, then some modern business magic will fix everything. Well, the end of the Netflix doc maybe suggests that McFarland ends up as an actual crook, but to start with it looks more like hubris than trying to part rubes with cash.

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