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$100 Million Lawsuit Filed Against Disastrous Fyre Festival

| © Ethel Davies/robertharding/REX/Shutterstock

Even in a year where Pepsi, United Airlines, and Donald Trump have made headlines for doing their worst, 2017’s biggest fail currently goes to Fyre Festival, the advertised luxury music festival set in the Bahamas that erupted into chaos over the weekend.

Unsurprisingly, a class action lawsuit has been filed against the festival’s organizers, Ja Rule and Billy McFarland, by celebrity trial lawyer Mark Geragos on behalf of plaintiff Daniel Jung, who is “seeking $5 million in damages for alleged fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and negligent misrepresentation.”

As reported by Variety:
The suit anticipates a class of “more than 150 “plaintiffs for whom it seeks a minimum of $100 million. Geragos will be busy over the upcoming week seeking out other litigants to join the suit, which alleges that the “festival’s 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 — that was closer to ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Lord of the Flies’ than Coachella.”

The suit alleges that festival attendees became virtual prisoners: “Faced with the complete lack of even the most basic amenities, as well as no assistance from Defendants, festival attendees began to panic. Predictably, Attendees began attempting to leave the island en masse, but found themselves trapped—even locked inside an airport awaiting delayed flights.”
McFarland and Ja Rule took to the festival’s website to give their side of the story, claiming that things got out of control after the event campaign went viral and they realized the island wasn’t capable of supporting the hopeful attendees.
As amazing as the islands are, the infrastructure for a festival of this magnitude needed to be built from the ground up. So, we decided to literally attempt to build a city. We set up water and waste management, brought an ambulance from New York, and chartered 737 planes to shuttle our guests via 12 flights a day from Miami. We thought we were ready, but then everyone arrived.

The team was overwhelmed. The airport was jam packed. The buses couldn’t handle the load. And the wind from rough weather took down half of the tents on the morning our guests were scheduled to arrive. This is an unacceptable guest experience and the Fyre team takes full responsibility for the issues that occurred.
Despite all rational conclusions that could be made in the wake of this fiasco, Fyre will be returning for a sophomore attempt in 2018, this time to take place at a beach location in the United States. Ja Rule and McFarland will be fully refunding everyone who bought tickets, and they’ve offered all guests free VIP passes to next year’s festival.

In other Fyre Festival news, the Bahamian government has placed the event location on lockdown, and Seth Rogen and comedy musical trio The Lonely Island tweeted out that they are currently working on a film about a music festival that goes “HORRIBLY WRONG,” and that they are thinking about joining in suing the festival’s organizers for “stealing our idea.”

https://twitter.com/thelonelyisland/status/858103575544709121

About the author

Hailing from the booming metropolis that is Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Ryan grew up surrounded by Amish farms and performed in a variety of questionable musical acts. After studying journalism at Penn State and working as an editor at the startup blog Onward State, Ryan moved to New York City to work for The Huffington Post as the Music and Entertainment Social Media Editor. When he isn't pouring through new music or managing the artists Angelo Mota and Marathon, he is endlessly quoting "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", "Archer" and "Kroll Show" to anyone that will listen.

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