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Music

Fyre Festival's Leaked Pitch Deck Is Basically Unreal

The 43-page document that attempted to entice investors to the ill-fated event has cropped up online and … there's a lot to take in.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB

This story has become a gift that just keeps on giving. On Monday, news broke that Ja Rule and the other organisers behind the disastrous Fyre Festival – a music festival in the Bahamas that promised boundless luxury but ended up like a live action role-play version of Lord of the Flies – are going to be very heftily sued, via a lawsuit which seeks damages of $100 million (£77 million) minimum.

And the bad news just keeps on coming for Fyre Festival, as today Vanity Fair shared a leak of the event's initial pitch to investors. And honestly, it's a sight to behold – Nick Bilton of Vanity Fair calls it "one of the most preposterous invitations for outside capital that I have ever seen."

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The deck outlines plans to promote the festival via the endorsement of social media influencers (so-called "Fyre Starters" if you can believe it, but wait, of course you can), and discusses the festival's plans to expand past its first event:

"Over the next five years, we will traverse the globe to find untouched lands and convert them into unparalleled experiences."

I don't know about you but I for one simply adore colonialism in the name of rich people being able to post on Instagram!

Further horrors lie in the very name the festival had for its own team ("The Fyre Squad," I cry, as I writhe in pain begging to die in peace), its social media strategy which saw it hire the man behind @fuckjerry's 'I'll take your jokes then repost them, now with credit after people protested' Instagram meme account – and just like a shiny bow to top off this gorgeous gift, the whole thing is concluded with a quote from the 13th-century poet and philosopher Rumi, without the slightest hint of irony:

"Seek those who light your flames"

No wonder it folded really, is it? A festival that bills itself as mostly a way for bookers and talent to make the most money with the least paperwork may not, in fact, be the most worthwhile reason to charge people thousands of dollars per ticket. Festivals are meant to be about, you know, music and friendships and discovering weird corners of your brain that you didn't know made you happy. It's hard to see how Fyre Starter Kendall Jenner fits into that picture, but maybe I'm not fully understanding how Fyre tried to "reimagine what it meant to attend a festival." Anyway, you can read the deck in full here.

You can also follow Lauren on Twitter.

(Image via Vanity Fair)