Festival goers went into an uproar after a costly fun filled weekend turned into a nightmare.  The Fyre Festival, which was marketed as a luxury music experience, was abruptly canceled last week. The event was to take place on a remote island in Bahamas. Admission costs ranged from $5,000 to $250,000. However, as soon as travelers reached the destination, many took to social media to complain about the festival’s lack of suitable accommodations and safety issues.

Rapper Ja Rule and tech entrepreneur, Billy McFarland, both were partners for the Fyre Festival.

Now it seems that there’s a class-action lawsuit against the promoters of the Fyre Festival. As reported by ABC News, the multi-million lawsuit was filed on claims of fraud. The legal documents lists “lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees – suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions…” The defendants are accused of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

Plaintiffs are seeking damages in excess of $100 million.

Festival attendee Daniel Jung and his attorney, Mark Gergagos, filed the lawsuit. They claim that the festival was a “rich-quick scam” and that the promoters “intended to fleece attendees for hundreds of millions of dollars by inducing them to fly to a remote island without food, shelter or water — and without regard to what might happen to them after that.”
The lawsuit is expected to have approximately 150 plaintiffs. Attendees “were hamstrung by their reliance upon Defendants for transportation, as well as by the fact that Defendants promoted the festival as a ‘cashless’ event —Defendants instructed attendees to upload funds to a wristband for use at the festival rather than bringing any cash. As such, Attendees were unable to purchase basic transportation on local taxis or buses, which accept only cash. As a result … at least one attendee suffered a medical emergency and lost consciousness after being locked inside a nearby building with other concert-goers waiting to be airlifted from the island,” according to an excerpt from Variety.

 

Before the announcement of a lawsuit, McFarland expressed that the failure – and ultimate cancellation – of the festival wasn’t their fault. Instead, a freak storm that passed over the island is what caused them to cancel the event.

“It’s no exaggeration to say this is the worst day of my life. We need to take things in order and make sure everything is alright and then take care of next year and make sure it’s better.”

McFarland also refuted outrageous gripes made by people online about the food and health and safety issues on the island.

“A majority of the photos are from people not actually at the festival. We had plenty of food and water on the festival site. Thousands of water bottles, we gave it out free at all times. We had a big kitchen. That was one of the kitchen staff’s food that someone took and uploaded,” stated McFarland.

“We did out best to fix the water and tents as guests were arriving which was a tough task for us. We took a step back and didn’t want to risk any unforeseen safety issues and it was better to postpone ’til next year.”

Ultimately, the promoters wished that they’d hired more staff to help with the immediate issues. They’d only hired 300 staff, but the number of festival attendees surpassed the amount of event staff.

The Fyre Festival is expected to go on in 2018. McFarland says that the festival will happen in America, near a beach somewhere. Guests, this time around, will be admitted free but be asked to donate one dollar to the Bahamian Red Cross.

 

Source: ABC News & Page Six

Photo credit: Getty Images