3 Invaluable Lessons from the Fyre Festival Documentary

Imagine this: A weekend on a private island, once owned by Pablo Escobar, attending a musical festival coined "The next Coachella".  You get to party with the world's most beautiful super models, athletes, musicians, all while staying in luxury cabanas on the beach.  You're next question likely is: Where do I sign up?!?! If you're not familiar with it, this was an event called Fyre Festival that launched in December of 2016.  The festival "took place" in April of 2017.  You may have noticed I put "took place" in quotes.  And for good reason.  Netflix recently released a documentary about this event shit show.  It's about a very greedy entrepreneur, who had a grand vision, but was a selfish asshole.  He used 400 influencers (mainly Instagram models) to promote this exclusive beachfront music festival.  It sold out in a matter of days.  6,000 people paying $1,000 - $12,000 per ticket.  Some even splurged $250,000 on the VIP packages.  The event crashed and burned, and that is putting it nicely.  On the morning of the event, it started down pouring.  All the "cabanas" (which were tents for people who lost their homes from a recent hurricane) got soaking wet, along with everything inside.  The fist day, about a third of the people showed up.  The tents filled up fast.  The event was cancelled the following morning, and everyone was forced back to the airport.  Video shows people laying on the floor of the tiny airport, waiting 24+ hours for flights out of there.  The airport had no food.  Or water.  It looked like something out of a horror movie.  But this was real life for thousands of people.  Here are a few things I took away form the documentary: 1. Having a Vision is Priceless This guy had a grand vision, and he sold the shit out of it.  Not only for the 6,000 people who purchased tickets, but also the behind the scenes people working on the project.  A few of them even admitted it didn't pass the "small test" initially, but Billy (the founder) sold them on the vision.  They bought in hook, line and sinker.  2. Influencer Marketing is Powerful  They announced the event in December of 2016.  The influencers posted on IG an orange square with some copy linking to the website to get tickets.  It went viral.  The website had a video selling the dream, and it worked like gangbusters.  They paid Kylie Jenner $250,000 for one IG post.  3. Admit Your Mistakes  Billy was advised on numerous occasions that it was best to pull the plug, and cancel the event.  He never listened.  He'd argue that his company (Fyre Media) was a solution focused business, not a problem focused one.  His team made a public apology, but claimed it was due to circumstances of of their control.  Which was complete bullshit.  They OVER promised, and UNDER delivered And that just might be the understatement of the year.  I highly recommend