Photo Credit: Billy McFarland (Instagram)
Third time’s the charm? Billy McFarland’s PHNX festival actually went off (mostly) without a hitch, complete with artists, attendees, and bathrooms.
After the infamous failures of Fyre Fests 1 and 2, Billy McFarland stunned critics over the weekend by actually putting on a music festival. PHNX took place in Honduras on Saturday night, complete with artists, people, bathrooms, and more or less edible food. But it wasn’t exactly a resounding success.
The event was livestreamed online (at $6.99 for a point-of-view feed). As a result, onlookers could see that PHNX was sparsely attended, with “only a few hundred people on site” by estimations. Ahead of Saturday’s festivities, a social media post was shared that suggested locals should attend for free to make things look more lively than they were.
Since the festival featured real artists—French Montana, Bobby Shmurda, and Slim Jxmmi—the lack of active attendees indicates that McFarland and any investors probably took a sizable loss between flying out the artists and building the infrastructure.
On top of that, there were some technical issues, including at least two power outages. French Montana did his best to get the crowd hyped by encouraging them to sing along, but was met with a fairly tepid response. A one-legged man crashed the stage at one point.
Nevertheless, the event was a smashing success when compared to McFarland’s previous two attempts at putting on a music festival. Since the 33-year-old went to prison for four years after defrauding investors and consumers at the original Fyre Fest, the snags at PHNX seem like minor hiccups at worst.
McFarland was forced to cancel Fyre Fest 2 over the summer, which came as no real surprise given the literal crime that was its predecessor. But to his credit, his third attempt at a music festival not only took place, but featured artists who showed up and attendees who don’t appear (so far) to have been defrauded. So, consider that a win for McFarland.
