Billy McFarland is auctioning the rights to the ill-fated Fyre Festival on eBay after a major deal collapsed.
The name that launched a thousand memes (and nearly as many lawsuits) is back on the market. Fyre Festival, the catastrophic luxury event turned cultural punchline, is now being auctioned off on eBay by its founder, Billy McFarland. That means you, too, could own the rights to a festival that failed dramatically.
Earlier this year, McFarland struck a deal with filmmaker Shawn Rech to sell off portions of the Fyre Festival intellectual property and trademarks. Rech confirmed the sale went through to Rolling Stone, securing rights related to a music streaming service, app and TV platform. But the rest of the deal, which McFarland claimed would bring in seven figures, has since fallen apart.
Now, McFarland says he’s done entertaining offers in private and is opening the auction to the public. “I’ve done a lot of crazy things, but this might be the craziest thing yet,” he said in an Instagram video posted today. “Today I am taking the most famous festival brand, Fyre Festival, and putting it up for auction on eBay, starting at one cent.” We’d argue he’s done crazier things like stranding the ultra-rich and influencers on an island without festival infrastructure, but we’ll agree to disagree here.
McFarland added that he’s received “over 1,000 offers for the Fyre brand” but is no longer interested in closed-door deals (or “playing games” as he calls it).
The eBay listing includes rights to the Fyre Festival brand name, trademarks, social media accounts, domains, and marketing assets. However, it excludes the streaming platform and TV channel – carve-outs already sold to Rech. It also excludes a “theather project,” likely in relation to a Broadway musical McFarland mentioned was in development years ago.
At the time of writing, bids for the brand on eBay had surpassed $150,000 with 92 bids, though McFarland still owes roughly $26 million in restitution to Fyre Festival’s original investors. Despite his past, he’s continued to hint at staging another festival under the Fyre name.
As for whether this is a legitimate business opportunity or another misguided stunt, one thing’s certain: McFarland remains committed to keeping Fyre in the public eye, even if it’s as a digital fire sale.
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