Fyre Festival genius reportedly scammed himself by selling Kanye West, Hamliton tickets
What's the opposite of ticket scalping?
The business visionary behind the Fyre Festival reportedly bought up pricy concert and theater tickets to sell on members of his other business, racking up thousands of dollars in losses along the way, according to a report from Vice News.
Billy McFarland, the now-infamous cofounder of Fyre media, also once started a high-end membership brand called Magnises. Vice News got a look at internal documents from the companies that showed McFarland used Fyre Festival credit cards to buy tickets to a variety of major shows including Adele, Broadway hit Hamilton, and Kanye West's Saint Pablo Tour. He'd then sell those tickets to Magnises members for less than he paid.
The scheme was ostensibly to provide some kind of appeal for Magnises members, who paid $250 per year to have a black Magnises card that...didn't really do much of anything.
Vice said that a corporate card in McFarland's name racked up $1.1 million in ticket purchases from September 2016 to February 2017. This included Hamilton tickets that one former Magnises employee told Vice resulted in a loss of around $1,200 per ticket.
MacFarland's currently the subject of a variety of lawsuits related to Fyre Festival, as well as investigations from state and national authorities. In June, he was arrested and charged with wire fraud.
The company behind the disastrous festival, where attendees paid thousands of dollars for a high-end luxury event only to be stranded with no food, shelter, or entertainment, just recently filed for bankruptcy.
Turns out that somehow wasn't the only bad investment MacFarland's made with Fyre Festival funds. Surely, there are more to learn about from here.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
