Fyre Festival attendees to get $7K each after class-action settlement

Fyre Festival attendees will receive just over $7,000 each after being stranded in the Bahamas as part of a “festival” that never occurred and also left most attendees without proper shelter or food.

The festival’s organizer, Fyre Media – a company founded by the festival’s mastermind Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule – on Tuesday settled a $2 million class-action lawsuit, The New York Times reported Thursday.

McFarland, 29, previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud and is currently serving a six-year prison sentence. He previously paid out several million to two attendees of the festival who purchased VIP experiences.

Fyre Festival became the subject of competing Netflix and Hulu documentaries which revealed the chaotic and disorganized efforts to put the festival together on the Bahamas’ Great Exuma; thousands of attendees arrived to the island expecting luxury accommodations only to find disaster tents usually used for refugees. All of the musical acts had also canceled.

The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing. #fyrefestival pic.twitter.com/I8d0UlSNbd

— Trevor DeHaas (@trev4president) April 28, 2017

The lawsuit settled this week alleged that Ja Rule and McFarland knew for months that the festival “was dangerously underequipped and posed a serious danger to anyone in attendance.”

“Billy went to jail, ticket holders can get some money back, and some very entertaining documentaries were made,” Ben Meiselas, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Times. “Now that’s justice.”