Fyre Festival Disaster in the Caribbean Spurs $100 Million Lawsuit

The disastrous Fyre Festival in the Caribbean has given rise to a $100 million class action lawsuit against organizers. According to a news report on Billboard.com, the lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Mark Geragos, on behalf of client Daniel Jung, accuses festival organizers of fraud citing adequate lack of food, water, shelter and medical care. Those who attended the festival said organizers created a dangerous and panicked situation with attendees suddenly finding themselves stranded in a remote island without basic provisions.

The event was touted as a two-weekend luxury getaway on a private Caribbean island with high-end food and accommodations, attendance by supermodels and popular bands. But things went downhill as attendees who arrived early realized that the festival grounds were not even close to what was advertised.

It Was Like the “Hunger Games”

When attendees, who spent anywhere between $4,000 and $100,000 for the tickets, arrived in the Exumas (a group of islands belonging to the Bahamas) they found the so-called accommodations were actually disaster-relief tents on the beach. Some of the tents, the kind you see on television that house refugees, were not even set up. The advertised “gourmet meals” were cheese sandwiches made with processed sliced cheese. To add to the trauma, Blink-182, one of the festival’s headliners, had pulled out at the last minute. Many compared the situation to the “Hunger Games” because they were trapped on the island with no amenities and dependent on the organizers for transportation.

Prior Record of False Promises

Geragos issued a statement saying the Fyre Festival was nothing more than a “get-rich-quick scam  from the very beginning” intending to “fleece attendees for hundreds of millions of dollars by inducing them to fly to a remote island without food, shelter or water – and without regard for what might happen to them after that.” The Washington Post reports that Fyre organizer Billy McFarland founded another company in 2013 called Magnises that made similar promises targeting status-seeking millenials.

For an annual membership fee of $250 Magnises said members could get exclusive tickets to “private members-only concerts, tastings with notable chefs and exclusive art previews at top galleries.” But several members in New York reported that several of these exclusive events were either canceled at the last minute or the tickets never arrived. The Better Business Bureau has registered 17 complaints about Magnises.

As California class action attorneys, we hope that consumers who paid thousands of dollars for tickets to this sham of an event get their money back and are properly compensated for the horrible experience they suffered, lured by false advertising and fake promises.