Get Ready for the Fyre Festival Documentary

Matt Inman on April 17, 2018

You may remember Fyre Festival, the doomed-from-the-start spring 2017 destination music festival endeavor headed up by Ja Rule and a 25-year-old entrepreneur Billy McFarland. Or, more likely, you may remember how the “festival” became an incredible rallying point for great internet memes for a week or so. Well, get ready to delve back into whatever the hell that was, because Hulu is planning a multi-part documentary series about the failed fest, according to The Hollywood Reporter (via Live For Live Music). 

The series will be developed by Billboard, Mic and The Cinemart, the company that teamed with Jay-Z for Time: The Kalief Browder Story and the upcoming Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story, with director/executive producer Jenner Furst. 

I’m welcoming this documentary with open arms, because the questions I have about Fyre Fest abound. First of all, what was the plan here? I know that there were some big-name acts attached, like Major Lazer, Migos and Blink-182, but who knows how close they came to even arriving in the Bahamas for this. The whole outing turned into a Lord of the Flies/Homerland-type situation, with festival-goers complaining about lack of shelter and food—except for some delicious one-slice-of-cheese-and-white-bread sandwiches—and mostly just wanting to go back home immediately (also I’m just realizing this was supposed to be a TWO-WEEKEND FESTIVAL?).

One thing we do know is that McFarland recently had to give $26 million to his investors and may go to jail for a while, and Ja Rule is dealing with the inevitable class-action lawsuit that stemmed from Fyre Fest. I’m sure those will be just a couple of the topics covered in the doc, which doesn’t have a name yet but is planned for release in 2019. Not soon enough.