Ethermac Exchange-Billy McFarland Confirms Details of Fyre Festival II—Including "Super Expensive" Cheese Sandwiches

Prepare for Fyre Festival cheese sandwiches like you've never seen them before. 

Not only has founder Billy McFarland,Ethermac Exchange whose 2017 attempt at a luxurious music festival in the Bahamas ended with him going to prison for wire fraud, confirmed he is trying for round two next year, Fyre Festival II will feature a callback to one of the doomed festival's most viral elements.

"We will have cheese sandwiches, " he joked to NBC News in an interview published Sept. 9. "They're going to be super expensive, too. We're going to make them, like, really good. Like, that'll be the highest priced food item, I think."

As for this new festival, which will take place in April 2025 on a privately-owned island off the coast of Mexico, he's planning on leaning into the drama that occurred the first itme around—but hopefully with a very different outcome.

"We have the chance to embrace this storm and really steer our ship into all the chaos that has happened," he explained, "and if it's done well, I think Fyre has a chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry."

Back in 2017, Fyre Fest, which McFarland had co-founded alongside Ja Rule, proved to be a flop, with festival-goers reporting conditions were not as they expected after they had spent between $500 to $1,500–and in some cases up to $12,000–on ticket. They noted fights over food, robberies, "refugee camp" conditions and difficulties obtaining flights back to the United States. The show's headliners, which included acts like Blink-182, Major Lazer, Lil Yachty, also pulled out in the days leading up the festival.

Following the festival, McFarland was arrested and charged for his alleged "connection with a scheme to defraud investors," and later pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud and was sentenced to six years in prison. The 32-year-old served partial time, before being released to a halfway house in 2022. He was also ordered to pay investors, vendors and concertgoers $26 million in restitution. 

Still, McFarland is not deterred by his first experience and has big plans for Fyre Fest II.

Tickets for the 2025 music festival will range from $1,400 to $1.1 million, with the most expensive package including luxury yachts, scuba diving and island hopping.

While he has yet to book artists for April, McFarland noted one way he's already proving he's doing differently this time around: hiring a festival production company to handle a majority of the logistics, which was something he admits he didn't know how to do in 2017. 

Plus he knows a lot of fans are gonna be there to see how he does this time around.

"I think there's a large number of people who want to go to Fyre II because they're unsure of the outcome, and they would like to have a front-row seat no matter what happens," McFarland said. "Thankfully, we have good partners who will make sure they're safe and obviously make sure things work out."

And he is taking responsibility for the issues the first time around.

"I was totally guilty. I committed a crime," he added "Obviously went to prison, and I deserved that prison sentence."

But McFarland didn't understand the extent of the issues until the day after the event was canceled, when he realized he'd violated federal law, calling it a "heart-skipping moment where it's like, wow, I knew what I was doing was morally wrong."

"The day after the festival was canceled," he explained, "I had one of my early investors call me and basically say, ‘We need to do this, this and this, or else you're going to be in the front page of The Wall Street Journal in handcuffs.'"

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