Skip to main content

Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland ordered to pay over $3 million to former investor

The cost of the calamitous festival keeps getting higher and higher...

Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland will need to pay up $3 million to one of his former investors, EHL Funding.

McFarland, the man behind arguably the most disastrous festival ever organised, is currently serving a six-year sentence after pleading guilty to multiple charges of wire fraud and bank fraud. According to a report by Billboard, the 27-year-old stopped making loan repayments to EHL in April 2017, immediately after the massively hyped festival fell apart. A New York County Judge has now ruled that the payments must be made. The ruling was given by default as, McFarland “failed to appear, answer or otherwise move” in this case.

On top of the remaining $3 million owed from the loan, it’s also laid out that McFarland will need to pay an additional 30% interest to EHL and reimburse attorney fees. All of this is to be added to the millions upon millions of dollars he already owes to numerous investors in the fallout of the initial lawsuit issued in 2017.

Many local employees who worked on site of the failed festival are yet to be paid for their labour. Last month, over £120,000 ($164,000) was raised for Maryann Rolle, a local caterer who was forced to use £38,000 ($50,000) of her own life savings to pay staff members after the disastrous event.

As well as the documentary available on Netflix that charts the entire event’s downfall, it was revealed this week that Seth Rogan is working with Lonely Island on a spoof film about “a music festival that goes HORRIBLY WRONG”.