Putting Out Fyres
A project manager’s look at the missteps that led to the Fyre Festival nightmare.
The Fyre Festival was an unmitigated disaster. It doesn’t take a project management professional to identify the cringe-worthy mistakes that were made during the ideation, planning, and execution of the now infamous music festival. Recently released and competing Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix have shed new light on the behind-the-scenes decision making that went into the creation — and subsequent failure — of “the greatest party that never happened.”
If you’re thinking about planning your own influencer get-together, ask yourself these couple questions early and often. They say all PR is good PR, but these tips might save you a few headaches — or keep you out of jail.
Is this scope reasonable?
The positive reception to Fyre Fest’s original marketing video generated significant enthusiasm, but, unbeknownst to ticket purchasers, the event planners were ignoring a critical concept when it relates to successfully delivering on a project. The general rule of thumb is that when deciding between quality, speed, and cost, you only get to pick two out of the three concepts. Fyre Festival, at its core, was intended to be:
- Ultra-luxurious and “bordering on the impossible”
- Delivered in six months, as opposed to a recommended 18
- Accomplished without a defined budget, requiring additional fundraising
The best time to ground an idea in reality is…as early as humanly possible. The best way to achieve that is by building and trusting a team of professionals empowered to speak their minds, challenge half-baked ideas and adapt to changing project dynamics. A project charter should have outlined the goals, roles, timeline, budget, and other critical aspects of the event, making any possible failure points obvious from day one.
Fyre Festival was built on the foundation of unreasonable expectations. Throughout the build-up to the event, countless opportunities to re-adjust expectations (both internally and amongst attendees) were ignored by Billy, Ja Rule, and the Jerry Media team.
Are we meeting the needs of our “users”?
Fyre Fest promised to be the ultimate Instagrammable weekend, complete with meaningless buzzwords and beautiful images of people and beaches. Throughout the process, what never appeared to concern Billy McFarland and the rest of the Fyre team were the actual wants and needs of the people attending the festival.
Festival-goers provided an ample and accessible research group that could have shaped the experience and prioritized resources as the festival neared. Instead, the hubris of Fyre’s leadership team resulted in an unachievable list of priorities based on the promises — or lies — that were defined during Fyre’s initial marketing push…and a bit of scope-creep in the form of pirate ships.
After outlining and executing on the core components of a successful remote festival experience (e.g. housing, food, water, music, security), the Fyre Fest team could have worked towards the vision outlined in their marketing videos with a backlog of secondary enhancements through a combination of attendee feedback and ICE (Impact, Confidence, Ease) prioritization.
Who is responsible for what?
Role setting is vital. Ensuring all critical responsibilities are outlined and that owners are assigned to each will ensure a project team is equipped to handle the inevitable hurdles that arise over the course of even the most thoroughly considered project roadmap.
Billy, Fyre’s resident quasi-visionary, played the role of “idea guy” for the forsaken festival. That role itself is common in projects and organizations. Steve Jobs built one of the world’s most successful and respected companies functioning as an ambitious and demanding visionary. McFarland’s and Jobs’ paths diverge with their ability and willingness to surround themselves with people capable of scaling and executing on an ambitious idea.
Establishing defined roles within a project charter allows a project team to clearly identify gaps. Team members are empowered to take personal ownership of their responsibilities while also having an opportunity to identify red flags related to execution, timelines, dependencies, and budget.
What happens if…?
When hosting thousands of tourists on a desolate island, contingency planning takes on a greater significance than when helping a client design a new website. Under either circumstance, using a risk log (like this one) ensures transparency across key stakeholders, keeping everyone informed about upcoming issues that may hinder successful delivery.
In the case of Fyre Festival, the most obvious risks were related to infrastructure and the ability to safely accommodate guests upon arrival. Mark both down as showstoppers. A functioning and accurate risk log allows a team to prioritize the most critical issues to ensure that all capable hands are working to define contingencies and mitigation plans. It doesn’t take hindsight to realize that the cruise ship idea for accommodations, while not ideal, was a worthwhile contingency plan to make sure that each attendee had a roof over their head.
When is the right time to bail?
Depending on which side of the story you believe, team members saw the inevitable Fyre Festival train-wreck months in advance. The promised caterers pulled out a month before the event due to lack of payment. Even with all of the empirical evidence pointing towards failure, the team attempting to deliver on these false promises refused to acknowledge the inevitable reality of the situation. Blink 182’s decision to bail the day of the event was the first time we were presented with participants willingly removing themselves from a clearly disastrous conclusion.
Milestones should have been identified throughout the risk management plan with clearly articulated go/no-go criteria when there were lapses meeting deadlines. Having enough tents and mattresses would have ranked pretty high on that list and wouldn’t have necessitated a frantic email the day before the event.
Ultimately, Fyre Festival was doomed for failure because it was led by a team of people that lacked the empathy to thoughtfully create an experience that realistically delivered on promises made. It’s a PMs job to identify the risks that ultimately led to the Fyre Festival’s demise, but Billy McFarland’s unwillingness to listen created an impossible task. Hopefully, this article (or his cellmate) can help open his eyes to that reality; and hopefully it helps any fellow project managers out there see the full sea for what it is, rather than just a bunch of swimming pigs.
Special thanks to Matt DeMartino, Tracy Hennessey, Lindsay Cooper, Chris Nine, Sam Schak, and Ryan Bataillon.
