bitchy | Fyre Festival 2 has been postponed with no future date or location announced

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If you’re standing up while reading this, you may want to take a seat now. If you’re in a public place, you may want to find a quiet spot to absorb this shocking, shocking news: Fyre Festival 2 has been postponed. On Wednesday, would-be concertgoers who had already bought their $1,400 to $1.1 million tickets were contacted by the festival saying that a refund had been issued, and that they could repurchase tickets when the new date and location are announced. It’s just so out of left field. Who could have possibly seen this coming, after the original 2017 festival became a music-less disaster and organizer Billy McFarland spent four years in prison for wire fraud yet still marched right back out into freedom and announced Fyre 2 for summer 2025 in Mexico even though not one but two Mexican cities denied that any planning, permits, or contact whatsoever had been made to mount the festival in either location? It’s a mystery…

Fyre Festival 2 tickets went on sale in February, with general tickets starting at $1,400. The festival was supposed to take place in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, from Friday, May 30, to Monday, June 2.

But on Wednesday, April 16, ticketholders received a message that the event was postponed. “The event has been postponed and a new date will be announced. We have issued you a refund. Once the new date is announced, at that time, you can repurchase if it works for your schedule,” the message, obtained by PEOPLE, said.

“FYRE Festival 2 is still on,” the statement continued. “We are vetting new locations and will announce our host destination soon. Our priorities remain unchanged: delivering an unforgettable, safe, and transparent experience.”

Billy McFarland, the organizer of the initial Fyre Festival in 2017 and the 2025 festival, announced in August 2023 that the festival would be returning.

“I’m sure many people think I’m crazy for doing this again. But I feel I’d be crazy not to do it again,” McFarland, 33, previously said, per NBC News. “After years of reflection and now thoughtful planning, the new team and I have amazing plans for FYRE 2.”

The festival was originally slated to take place in Isla Mujeres, but in early March, the government of Isla Mujeres denied that the event was taking place there.

Weeks later, McFarland said at a late March press conference that the new event would occur in Playa del Carmen. On Thursday, April 3, the city denied that the music festival is happening there, according to a press release translated by Rolling Stone.

However, in a Friday, April 4 Instagram statement, McFarland said the event organizers have been working with the city of Playa del Carmen since March to secure permits for the music festival. He also included various photos of alleged documents — such as tourism permits, environmental permits and receipts of payments made to the Playa del Carmen government — all filed or submitted over the past month.

The Fyre Festival Instagram account did not mention the postponement on Wednesday, but it did promote a sweatshirt in its Stories with the logo “Fyre 2 is Real.”

[From People]

Yeah, when your merch has to insist that the event is actually real, I think that’s a clue. Likewise when the organizers make a point of declaring their commitment to safety and transparency — while issuing refunds and postponing an event that the local government said all along “does not exist.” When McFarland announced Fyre 2 back in August 2023, he made a big deal over a supposed 50-page plan he’d worked on to make the second festival better (aka actually happen) — a plan he wrote during a seven-month stint in solitary while he was serving time for his fraud in the first festival. I want to see this fabled document, the one he said put to paper “how it would take my ability to bring people from around the world together to make the impossible happen.” At this point, I’m imagining it’s just doodles of stick figure people and ocean waves and music notes. Oh, and speaking of transparency, as of this writing neither the official Fyre website nor Instagram have any mention of the postponement. None, nada. You can, however, still buy clothing that says “Fyre 2 is Real.”