It’s all we can talk about in the office at the moment, the sheer car crash horror of the Netflix Documentary…It just goes to show how wrong an event can go if you don’t read the warning signs.
With this week’s news that models, influencers and talent management agencies are being subpoenaed,and with $28million of investors’ money still missing (and millions of dollars in payments outstanding), this story shows no signs of dying out any time soon.
But, for us here at The Producers, we are just aghast and frankly horrified that a group of fairly intelligent people (discuss), surrounded by a lot of very intelligent and experienced people, could have made so many epic, EPIC fails.
So in honour of this Frye Festival, we have pulled together our Top 10 of how NOT to put on a music festival…
1.When the owners of the site tell you NOT to put the name of a famous drug dealer (probably the most famous ever) in any communications about your festival, and you sign a contract to that effect, it’s probably a good idea not to go ahead and do just that… Cue frantic location searching and the first of the alarm bells starting to ring
2. When you ask experts to cost up your festival for you and they come back with detailed line by line budget at around $5million, it’s a good idea to tailor your plans to fit the budget that you actually have, rather than just carrying on believing that you can deliver your vision for a much cheaper budget. Budgets can of course be flexed and innovative solutions found and deals done, but you can’t magically produce a $5million event for $1million, no matter how creative you are.
3. Don’t just outright lie. It’s the world of events, and yes things do change, so if they do its best to get this information out to your audience as soon as possible. If you sell someone a Luxury Villa and the reality is that you don’t actually have ANY Luxury Villas, you should probably ‘fess up as soon as possible and offer an alternative.
4. Find a site that can actually accommodate the number of people you would like to buy tickets to your festival. The health and safety implications alone are terrifying, so it’s a good idea to listen to the experts (or even just locals who know the site) when they tell you that there physically isn’t enough space onsite and you need to either expand, find a new site or cut the ticket numbers.
5. Don’t mix alcohol, exhaustion and the sun. You have guests who have travelled extensively, and you have nowhere to put them. It’s therefore probably best not to start pouring alcohol down their throats and hoping this will help blot out the reality of where they are.
6. If you are putting on a music festival and booking some of the biggest names in the businesses, it’s a good idea to get your technical production team onboard as early as possible. In fact, they should probably be the second phone call you make after confirming your site and licence. Big artists expect a big level of production and that comes with a price tag and a lot of very experienced people and takes time to plan. So where possible, try and brief your technical team more than 45 days before the festival.
7. Wet weather contingency – no client ever likes to pay for it, but if you are somewhere “TROPICAL” (or even in the UK) where the likelihood of rain is pretty much guaranteed, then it’s worth at least having thought about this and having some kind of contingency, however small, because in the world of events, if it can go wrong, it will.
8. Don’t ask any staff member, supplier or for that matter a friend to “take one for the team” (or more appropriately – give one for the tea,” with a customs official. Words literally fail us.
9. Have a backup plan (your contingency) – know how you are going to get people home. Know who you can call to help you solve the problem. Don’t just hide in a local resort and hope no one will find you. Have an airline contact, a boat contact, a local car service, a travel service and contacts at local hotels that you can call on if needed. And make sure you have a contingency line in the budget.
10. Pay your suppliers at least 50-75% in advance if you can. Don’t lie to them, don’t bully them, don’t defraud them or put their lives in danger from angry local mobs.. or sack them when they tell you something you don’t want to hear… In most cases, it’s this information that you need to hear and respect. they are experts and that’s why you asked them for help in the first place!
Billy McFarland currently resides in his own jail cell looking at 6 down the barrel of years of hard time and having to foot the bill for 26million, so his bad karma has thoroughly caught up with him
But apparently Ja Rule recently defended himself and his role in Fyre and claimed on Twitter that he was “hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked, lead astray” by McFarland.
He wrote in another tweet, “I did not and would never scam ANYONE… period!!!”
Well that’s good to know! Where is the $26 million then Ja?