FYRE Festival has new ownership after the brand’s co-founder, Billy McFarland, sold the rights on eBay for just $245,300.
The deal closed just days after McFarland announced that he’d be auctioning off the rights, claiming in an Instagram Reel posted last Monday (July 7) that he’s received “upwards of 1,000 offers” for the festival. The FYRE Fest is infamous for being relatively nonexistent, as its inaugural event in 2017 was so chaotic that it was canceled indefinitely. Announced entertainers and influencers didn’t show up for the event, where guests slept in flimsy tents and ate unappetizing sandwiches.
By 2018, the entrepreneur was sentenced to six years for charges including wire fraud in connection to the failed festival, although he was released in 2022.
According to TMZ, on Tuesday afternoon (July 15), the festival’s intellectual property, trademarks and social media assets were sold for $245,300 after 175 bids were made by 42 bidders. While McFarland streamed that auction, he said that the bid being just past $245,000 “sucks” and was “so low.”
In April, after years of teasing a second Fyre Fest, McFarland announced in April that he was prepared to “pass the torch.”
“We have decided the best way to accomplish our goals is to sell the FYRE Festival brand, including its trademarks, IP, digital assets, media reach, and cultural capital – to an operator that can fully realize its vision,” he stated at the time.
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