The Fyre Festival put on by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule was a noted flop, and the two are working to make amends for all of the chaos, but one issue stood out above the rest: the quality of the food that was served.
Thanks to one Tweet, we've all been led to believe that the food served was sub-par, to say the least. The picture below shows two pieces of bread, two pieces of cheese and a side salad. Imagine having that served to you at a music festival for which you paid a lot of money to attend. No, thank you.
The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing. #fyrefestival pic.twitter.com/I8d0UlSNbd
— Trevor DeHaas (@trev4president) April 28, 2017
It just so happens, however, that this was not the food that was served to the festival's guests. Foodbeast reports that this meal was the meal served to the staff, and that the guests were offered chicken, pasta, burgers, fries and salad. It still sounds like a bunch of regular picnic food items, but it sure beats two slices of bread and cheese. I'm not sure I like that idea for staff members, either. They work hard!
TMZ tweeted an actual photo of some of the festival food that was served to guests, so you can see for yourself how it really looked (which is still not that great).
Fyre Festival Sandwich Photo Was Staff Lunch, Guests Had Real Food (PHOTOS) https://t.co/PijbeL0CCh
— TMZ (@TMZ) May 1, 2017
Fyre Festival gets it, though. They know they messed up. According to a press release they sent out the second day of the event, they're planning on issuing refunds to all of the festival guests, and also granting them free tickets to next year's event, which will hopefully be better planned. Billy McFarland and Ja Rule simply weren't prepared to take on the masses that arrived at the Bahamas ready for an awesome time. It's been reported that airports and buses were flooded with crowds and the islands themselves had trouble thanks to some harsh winds. Basically, the whole thing was complete chaos.
Apologies have been issued to guests and staff and thank yous have been issued to the Bahamian Government and Ministry of Tourism. In order to make amends, the team will be donating to the Bahamas Red Cross Society. I think it's safe to say Billy McFarland and Ja Rule learned from this experience, and will do much better next time.