In April 2017, it was marketed as the party of a lifetime. The Fyre Music Festival was billed as a two-weekend, immersive experience in paradise where festival goers would enjoy top musical acts, party with supermodels and stay in lux accommodations on a private island in The Bahamas once owned by Pablo Escobar.
But attendees who paid thousands of dollars to fly to the Caribbean for Fyre Fest were greeted with complete chaos. When they arrived, they found a tent city and half-built structures. As more ticket holders arrived, they discovered there was not enough security, lights or food. Live tweets from ground zero of the pseudo-concert turned the fest and its co-founders, rapper Ja Rule and entrepreneur Billy McFarland, into the laughing stock of the Internet.
In the aftermath of the debacle, Fyre Fest was federally investigated and subject to a class action lawsuit. McFarland was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for defrauding investors for millions of dollars.
Now, the new Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, out Jan. 18, goes behind the scenes with people directly involved to find out exactly what happened and how it all fell apart.