Life

Sleb Safari: The Fyre Festival was not lit

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

Fyre Festival goers thought they'd be hanging out on Bahamian beaches, sipping cocktails and rubbing shoulders with beautiful people
Fyre Festival goers thought they'd be hanging out on Bahamian beaches, sipping cocktails and rubbing shoulders with beautiful people Fyre Festival goers thought they'd be hanging out on Bahamian beaches, sipping cocktails and rubbing shoulders with beautiful people

THE Fyre Festival in the Bahamas was to be the ultimate destination music festival where wealth and exclusivity met their friend, luxury.

Promoted by celebrities on social media, tickets cost $450 for a day pass and $3,995 for a weekend with “curated tented accommodation” and patrons were promised it would be the new Coachella with oodles of Instagram moments on an island where private jets were welcome.

The reality was “closer to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies than Coachella” according to one lawsuit. The debacle has ended with organiser Billy McFarland pleading guilty to wire fraud in a New York court and contemplating a 10-year jail term.

You’re wondering how bad this festival could have been. If you’d been given 24 hours to organise a festival out the back of your granny’s bungalow as the Beast from the East vented its rage you’d have had less complaints.

The Fyre Festival most definitely was not lit.

Complaints included a lack of security, running water, food and electricity supply which, on balance, could definitely put a damper on things. Bands who were due to perform cancelled as word got out that the life-changing festival was doing just that, only not in a good way.

Oh, and the curated tent accommodation? Turned out to be basic white tents crammed on to wasteland with lonely Portaloos dotted about.

Happily, details of Billy McFarland’s spendy behaviour have emerged via NY Post’s Page Six.

He splashed $18,208 on towels and $260,000 on carpets for the “curated tented accommodation” but ended up feeding the residents cheese sandwiches. Go figure.

Remarkably he also spent $160,000 on a yacht for headliners Blink-182 who cancelled their festival appearance. Sleb Safari suspects they didn’t know about the yacht. It would have cancelled too but still have made time to hang out on the yacht because it’s moral like that.

A “federal source with intimate knowledge of the case” told Page Six this was an instance of a “millennial gone wild”, adding “It was just the idea of a 20-something who unraveled.”

When you put it like that Sleb Safari is moved to ask, which one of us hasn’t been there; in our twenties, trying to make a buck, massaging the truth so well that it’s asleep on the table before we even get the chance to ask which essential oil it wants us to use?

Millennial gone wild Billy McFarland is facing a lengthy prison sentence but he should look for the silver lining. If he signs up to prison classes he'll learn how to budget and how to use a spreadsheet and he can have another crack at this music festival malarkey.

Sleb Safari is already looking forward to the Relight My Fyre Festival which will most definitely be lit.

Competition: Win two weekend passes to niFITNESS Show

SLEB Safari has two weekend passes to the niFITNESS show up for grabs.

The two-day event is taking place at Titanic Exhibition Centre on April 7 and 8 and there will be exercise classes, demonstrations, workshops, training sessions and seminars around the topics of body, lifestyle, food and mind from the likes of Joe Wicks and Lucy Mecklenburgh.

All activities are included in the ticket price and participation is unlimited.

Dale Farm is sponsoring niFITNESS show and giving away the two weekend passes. To enter the competition answer the following question correctly:

Q Which ITV reality TV show did Lucy Mecklenburgh take part in?

Email your answer to competitions@irishnews.com and put 'Sleb Safari/niFITNESS show competition' in the subject line. The deadline is noon on Wednesday March 14. Usual Irish News rules apply.

Stand out Oscar dresses

AND the Oscar for best dressed goes to Janelle Monae... Would you look at that outfit? The colour, the train, the bedazzled shoulders, the waist and the exquisite jewelled rose on her tie. Top to toe drama and class. And that curl? Oh my.

Janelle’s three-piece suit was custom made by Christian Siriano and is a piece of art. Smithsonian people, put it on display right this minute.

Sleb Safari’s second favourite outfit is a tie between Lupita Nyong’o for a gorgeous black and gold creation with amazing structure and Rita Moreno who showed up in the same dress she wore when she saw her Oscar in 1962. Bravo ladies.

Social Media Smut

Miles Richie posted this on Instagram to acknowledge father Lionel’s handprint ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard. Lionel must be touched by Miles’ choice of photograph. It’s OK though, little sister Sofia posted it too.