Déjà vu.
Ticketholders who planned to attend Billy McFarland’s controversial Fyre Festival 2 next month were left in a state of panic on Wednesday after its official website posted – and then deleted – an announcement saying the event was postponed.
“Fyre 2 Festival is postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date in the future,” the now-deleted statement read, per The Sun. “If you have purchased tickets already, you will receive an email once the new date is confirmed.”
The website also said that tickets for the festival, which went for $1,400 and higher, were “unavailable.”
However, the official Fyre Festival 2 website was reportedly updated again to make it look as if the initial “postponed” announcement had never appeared.
Many took to social media to mock the ordeal.
“Who could have imagined?” one person posted on X. “This has to be a joke,” wrote another.
“Well that’s not good,” a third person tweeted. “Who could have possibly seen this coming?”
“It’s very easy to postpone something that was never gonna happen anyway,” added a fourth.
The chaos and confusion on Wednesday came just more than one month before Fyre Festival 2, the successor of the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017, was set to take place from May 30 to June 2 in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.
McFarland, who served four years in prison for fraud related to his involvement in the failed Fyre Festival in 2017, first announced his plans for a second attempt in September.
But those plans were cast in doubt in February after Mexican officials said that McFarland, 33, and the event’s other organizers never requested permits.
“Due to information circulating in the media regarding the ‘FYRE FESTIVAL II,’ the General Directorate of Tourism of Isla Mujeres informs that no person or company has requested permits from this office or any other Municipal Government department for said event,” the Isla Mujeres government said in a statement on its Facebook page at the time.
Like Fyre Festival 2, the original Fyre Fest promised big-name musicians like Blink-182 and Migos; celebrities like the Hadid sisters and Emily Ratajkowski; fine food; and luxury accommodations.
However, the festival failed miserably and later went viral on social media after both Hulu and Netflix released documentaries about the catastrophe.
McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for his financial crimes, although he only served four years from 2018 to 2022. Prosecutors also revealed that the failed festival cost investors upwards of $26 million.
“This is the most tangible way to repay the $26 million that I owe, and having real partners gives an opportunity in the next five to seven years to actually pay back that $26 million,” McFarland told The Sun last month. “And unfortunately, no one’s offering me $26 million to work somewhere else.”