Nearly two years to the day since it happened and we honestly cannot get enough of the utter disaster that was the failed Fyre Festival; the infamous “luxury experience” that fell on its ass and trapped thousands of insanely wealthy young people on an impoverished island in the Bahamas, and lead to the imprisonment of its very showy founder.
[jwplayer Nz82LN6V]
In January, Netflix dropped the anxiety-inducing but absolutely riveting documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, which gave some insight into just what in the blue hell happened in the lead up to, and over the course of, the festival’s aborted first day.
Four days prior to that, however, a competing documentary – Fyre Fraud – was released by American streaming platform Hulu. While the two documentaries quite obviously work well together, the Hulu documentary was also subtly critical of the Netflix one; The Greatest Party was produced Jerry Media aka FuckJerry who played a massive role in the initial social media promotion of Fyre, which lead to critics noting that The Greatest Party feels less like an honest portrayal of events and more like brand rehabilitation for the company.
Because Hulu isn’t available in Australia, Fyre Fraud has not been legally available to local viewers. That is, until now.
Channel Seven announced this morning that they will be premiering the documentary, in full, this coming Sunday night.
Fyre Fraud is notable because it’s anchored around an extensive and frankly remarkable interview with festival founder Billy McFarland, who at the time of filming was mere months away from being sentenced to six years’ jail for various fraud crimes associated with the collapse of the festival.
Crucially, in case you were wondering, it does not feature Andy King and his tales of of ah… oral persuasion. That’s exclusively Netflix domain, alas.
That said, it’s another insightful look into one of the most staggering failures of the internet era. And that alone makes it well worth a look.
Fyre Fraud premieres on Channel Seven this coming Sunday at 9:30pm AEST.
