MARCH | COVER FEATURE
The mayhem of Fyre Festival,
documented on Twitter
relationship with the recent documentaries.
“The poem muses on how, when
we hear the siren of an ambulance,
we can’t think of others mortality
without thinking of our own.
We can’t help watching without
breaking into a sweat by thinking
of what would happen if we
ever ignored the basics of event
management and found ourselves
in that position. We should never
be complacent but, thankfully, as
an industry we aspire to be – and
are – better than Fyre,” he adds.
Despite the impending cock-ups,
however, few disagree that the
original Fyre Festival concept held
water.
RLC managing director Rachel
Ley points out that, with over a
third of today’s youth more likely
to trust a social media influencer’s
word over a brand, it is no surprise
that models like Bella Hadid and
Kendall Jenner had a tremendous
impact on the sales and marketing
of Fyre festival.
“Some 400 of these in-demand
influencers, each with millions
of followers, posted an orange
tile on Instagram, which lead
to a promo video and included
the hashtag #FyreFestival.
These posts generated over 300
million impressions in just 24
hours, and the festival sold-out
as a result. In other words, Fyre
sold out so quickly because it not
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only promised a unique festival
experience (ticket holders certainly
got that!) but it also promised
Instagram content that friends
and followers wouldn’t be able to
compete with.”
Ley adds that this ‘FOMO’
(fear of missing out) resulted in
Millennials and Generation Z
paying anything up to $12,000
for VIP ticket packages, just to try
and guarantee real-time social
content for Instagram Stories that
would drive their follower count
and support the illusion they were
living their best lives on a private
island in the Bahamas.
Despite this, there’s a clear
question of ethics, adds Dan
Andrew, co-founder, The BeKnown
Agency, who says that, while the
founders of Fyre played into the
Instagram trend there was far
more at stake. “When you create
an idea you’re so passionate about,
you need to take a step back, and
look at how to create it practically
and ethically. This includes all the
amenities and support welfare,
because you have a duty of care.
Often creators are just thinking
about bands they want to book,
and what they would enjoy as a
guest.”
No matter the dodgy motives
and how badly expectations
were mismanaged, there was a
true vision in there somewhere,
Amplify’s Emmins adds: “Billy
McFarland, his cheerleader Ja Rule
and the agencies he brought on
board had an insight, intuitively
knew an audience, and put spend
in to exploit that.
“Most festivals fail to break even
in the first couple of years, but
the hype behind Fyre captured
the spirit of the target audience’s
imagination, and according to
various accounts 5,000 tickets
sold out in no-time and demand
for accommodation quickly
outstripped availability. The
marketing had worked, but at what
cost?”
George Chapman, head of
operations and production at global
partnerships and activation agency
Wasserman agrees. “The concept
was really strong, but in reality you
shouldn’t be that rogue. Almost
everything they did was absolutely
not in line with best practice.
They didn’t follow Wasserman’s 6
Ps - Proper Planning Prevents Piss
Poor Performance. They were very
‘marketing and commercially’
minded, but didn’t create the event
as a whole campaign – they didn’t
follow any of the usual processes.
He adds: “Using ‘social’ as a
starting point is reckless. There is
always a temptation to get stuff
out on social but you have to be
so careful for so many reasons.
To post information up without
infrastructure and venue is very
poor. However, if you absolutely
have to post something, you have
to put in disclaimers eg ‘not actual
images’ or ‘the types of artists that
might appear’. Ethics-wise you also
just don’t put out artists names
before they’re confirmed.”
The Fyre stakeholders certainly
spotted an opportunity for a
unique and remote luxury festival
to showcase their new talent
booking venture, Rachel Bateman,
head of live engagement at Initials
notes. “The vision for the festival was