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Strategy March 18, 2019

Authorities Are Auctioning Off Fyre Festival Branded Merchandise

Sales will help repay victims defrauded in connection with the festival that failed to materialize.

By  Christopher Ruvo

It was the greatest festival that wasn’t. That’s turned promotional products created to hype the ill-fated Fyre Festival into collectibles. There’s more than just a quirky irony to the fact, though. Authorities plan to use sales of the branded merchandise to generate money to help compensate victims that the founder of the shambolic non-event scammed.

Items the United States Marshals Service will be selling through an online auction (date-to-be-determined) include Fyre-branded T-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, hats, wristbands and medallions. The USMS worked with experts to ensure the merch is authentic. Authorities seized the swag from federally convicted fraudster Billy McFarland, the founder of the Fyre Festival.

“We know that there is tremendous interest in these items in the NY metro area in particular,” a spokesman for the USMS’s Manhattan office told Vulture. Once the auction ends, the marshals plan to distribute money from sales to victims McFarland defrauded.

“Our objective always is to get the funds back to the victims as fast as we can in cases where there are victims,” authorities told Vulture.

McFarland, on the right, with Fyre Festival co-founder Ja Rule. Ja Rule has not faced prosecution in connection with the festival.

In October 2018, a federal judge sentenced McFarland to six years in prison and ordered him to forfeit $26 million in connection with fraud charges tied to the event. McFarland, CEO for Fyre Media at the time, billed the purported party in the Bahamas as a “luxury music festival.” Instead, it was more of a metaphorical dumpster fire. During the opening weekend, there were a host of problems with everything from food and security, to artist relations and medical services. Basic amentities like running water and transportation were unavailable. Instead of the swanky villas and Michelin-level food McFarland promised, attendees that had paid thousands of dollars got pre-packaged sandwiches and FEMA tents. Ultimately, the event was suspended and then shut down, never to occur. It was such an epic disaster that Hulu and Netflix did documentaries.

For all the chaos and criminality, though, Fyre Festival is an event that will live on in the collective memory of the Millennial generation. And for that, we wouldn’t mind scoring a bit of the merch.