So, Ja Rule's 'Fyre' is actually a company, not just a total disaster of a festival
In case you have been under a rock -- or you're trapped on an island in the Bahamas with a dead cell phone and no connectivity -- the Fyre Festival has been a disaster.
But what is Fyre? Yes, it's a music festival that has now left hundreds of rich millennials stranded and awaiting refunds. But the actual Fyre, the inspiration of the name, is a company created by rapper Ja Rule.
Fyre, which I hadn't heard of until today, is an "on-demand talent booking service." I went to fyreapp.com and in a few minutes I had booked French Montana to play my birthday (June 2) at Mashable HQ in New York (don't think I can expense private jets to the Bahamas).
It just took:
1. Sign up
2. Find your artist
3. Offer
No money had to change hands, yet. I offered $500 with a $50 booking fee from Fyre. I wanted to put in $100, but guess the minimum bid is $500 (I don't have $12,000 to spend on Fyre tickets, let alone make a big offer to French Montana).
According to the website, the artist takes 100 percent of the offer and then Fyre takes 100 percent of the booking fee. That sounds quite fair and transparent. How about that Fyre Festival?
Anyway, the experience was pretty slick, and it'd be pretty awesome if French Montana agreed to play on my birthday. In the past, I would have had no idea how to even ask that question / make that offer.
Once upon a time, I had a band play at my sister's combined high school and college graduation. That was nearly 7 years ago, and it required me Googleing for the band's contact information and then having a lot of back-and-forth negotiating.
The Fyre website also integrates with Spotify so you can listen to the artist's music on-demand, and Bandsintown so you can see when and where they're already scheduled to play. So tech savvy! So fun!
I can imagine it being even more useful for a venue operator, not just a private booker like me. A quick perusal of Google offers no other big competitors. There's Gigwell, but that's a booking software for the business side of the operations, not something consumer-facing like Fyre. There's Global Talent Booking, but the website is so ugly I'm actually deterred from clicking anything.
But obviously there's some problems there. If I can make an offer in a few minutes, what's to say thousands people can't sign up right now and make bullshit offers? I didn't have to submit any payment information and nothing has been contracted, yet, unlike the promises they made to everyone who attended Fyre Festival.
My offer for French Montana was rejected in about 20 minutes, via an email:
So now that Fyre Festival is officially a disaster, the question remains: What's next for Fyre?
Topics Music
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
