The New York Post reveals that lawyers have collected a mere $1.4 million for the attendees of Fyre Festival after 4 years of trying to collect funds. After subtracting the funds for the legal team, attendees are to split $300,000. This will leave about 4 cents on the dollar for the ticket holders. Ticket holders claim they are owed $7 million.
In The Know: Fyre Festival was a failed music festival created by entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury music festival in the Bahamas. Celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski promoted the festival. Bands such as Blink-182 and Major Lazer were scheduled to perform. Festival attendees spent $1,200 minimum on tickets with additional packages costing up to $100,000. Attendees arrived at the festival expecting luxury accommodations and food. Instead, they found cold cheese sandwiches and FEMA tents to sleep in. All musical acts bailed & the models failed to disclose that they were paid to promote the festival. Attendees were left confused and with no real place to stay.
McFarland is now serving a six-year jail sentence for fraud.
Fyre Festival’s bankruptcy trustee Gregory Messner claims over the last four years he has tried to collect money from the models & bands who benefited from this scheme. Messner claims Kendall Jenner coughed up less than half of the money she was paid for promoting the event. Emily Ratajkowski gave back a measly 10% of the money she earned and Blink-182 gave back more than half of the money. McFarland did nothing to help recover funds and barely kept any books and records that could help track down any additional person who benefited from this disastrous scheme.
Messner is looking into whether documentary footage from Netflix and Hulu is estate property. Otherwise, he aims to earn the court’s approval to close the case as soon as possible.
From the Article:
“Bankruptcy expert Adam Stein-Sapir thinks the burned Fyre Festival creditors who stand to get paid should count themselves lucky, despite the pitiful recovery. ‘The reality is that there were almost no business records to speak of, no paper trail showing exactly how money came in and where it went, so the fact that there was anything left over is a bit of a win,’ Stein-Sapir said.”