But the chunk of change McFarland will walk away with pales in comparison with the ticket prices of some Fyre Festival packages—and the legal bill he is saddled with following wire-fraud convictions associated with the event.
McFarland did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
With so much scorched earth behind it, Fyre Festival will be an ambitious revival project, according to Andrew Mall, an associate professor of music at Northeastern University. Its failed second iteration only confirmed people’s beliefs in the brand’s failure following the 2017 scandal, he said.
“Billy McFarland doesn’t know how to build a team that puts on events,” Mall told Fortune. “He only knows how to build a team that generates publicity and draws eyeballs.”
McFarland put Fyre Festival’s viral status at the forefront of his sale’s pitch: On the eBay listing, he wrote “Every success and every misstep only made the name more powerful.” Mall said the new owner of the brand could lean into, and reclaim, the event’s previous disasters, imagining a “Survivor”-style event with ticket holders having to brave obstacles in order to later kick their feet up and enjoy luxury offerings.
“You buy into this knowing you’re going to go somewhere gorgeous, but then you’re going to be roughing it,” Mall said. “Maybe at the end of roughing it, there are also some beautiful events, but you have to outlast and outwit your fellow attendees in order to enjoy the experience at the end.”
The Fyre Festival brand may have several different futures, but with McFarland saddled with a steep legal bill and an auction outcome falling far short of expectations, Mall was left with one question about the sale: “How does it benefit McFarland?”
