Well, you probably remember hearing about the Fire Festival back in 2017,
seems like ages ago now
a music festival in the Bahamas that marketed itself as a luxurious and epic escape
that ended up turning into a nightmare for
many lacking food or proper housing for attendees
who spurred two documentaries, numerous podcasts and said the co founder,
Billy MacFarland to prison
our very own Baker Machado sat down with mcfarlane
and his new business partner John Sara sign to hear
about their plans to try again.
Fire Festival Two apparently is happening.
Um What made you decide after four years in jail that you wanted to do this again?
I am here for one reason
and that's to pay everybody back while still doing something incredible.
And the world has
taken a turn for the more interesting over the past couple of weeks
where I teased Fire Festival two in the form of a Broadway play.
And it just created this massive media moment with no marketing and no spend.
And this has resulted in a lot of interest
including partners who are willing and able to help
us pay back everybody who is owed and there's
just nothing more important to me than doing that.
And by the way, one point, so this is two, but 1.5 apparently is a Broadway show.
Explain how you're about this. How are you able to sort of get this off the ground?
So, Fire Festival uh didn't happen in the initial vision of it.
So Fire Festival 1.5, this is the first was half done
and we feel like Broadway is a really interesting format to combine
a music concert with the underlying story of everything that happened.
And do you have a cast involved in this?
Do you have an idea of who's gonna be playing you in this?
So I think the scope of my responsibility is like they're gonna
let me mess the bathrooms up and like make the experience,
but I'm not casting and not actually involved
and maybe I'll narrate a couple of scenes,
but we have a professional partner who is handling everything and I
to run with some of the fun, you know, marketing side.
Is there a launch date for it yet? Uh Not yet? OK.
Uh John,
I want to bring you into this conversation after
everything publicly that happened with the First Fire Festival.
Why on Earth would you want to get involved potentially with the
second one if you really peel back the onion on this guy,
even if you saw the thing on Netflix and everything else, like
everything he did
that was questionable. First of all, he served his time for what he did. Number one.
Ok.
Number two, it's like
everything he did was in the name of saving the company.
He wasn't hoarding this money, putting it under a mattress somewhere,
everything he was alleged against them, but he was found guilty of,
he was all doing in the name of saving fire.
All right. And he made some bad decisions along the way.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, you owe $26 million in restitution.
Are you worried at all? You'll get your money back, John.
Uh So I'm coming on more as an advisor at this point and you haven't invested.
No,
it's not the check he needs from an investment standpoint is much bigger
than an individual is gonna bring to do this the right way.
It's gonna be have to be someone big
and he's in conversations with these teams right now
and we can't say yet, but it's looking very promising. I assisted him in these
has there been interest so far
in Fire Festival too? And I did
financially
tweet saying Fire Festival two is finally happening.
512 people reached out asking to invest from that one tweet and
we're not here trying to fundraise from your traditional sources of capital.
However,
two of these people are massive funds and part of
our conversation is you guys will handle all the logistics,
we will get the best possible music partners in the world together.
Uh I'm signed to the largest management company in
the US and they have an incredible music division
so they could be part of that. And then in order to do this,
we have to make the investment to pay back everybody in full who was owed.
And that includes the court order restitution as well as all of the workers in the.
You want to go back and do this again.
Most people who have been would have served their time would have been like,
I'm doing something completely different.
I'm taking up a completely different hobby.
I'm going to invest in something completely different. Why? Go back to the same?
Well, that puts you in the slammer. Yeah, I mean great question.
And I need to start by saying what I did before
was totally wrong and we can laugh now about marketing,
but that's all to do a good thing here and cause attention so it can pay people back.
But I was totally wrong. I was totally guilty.
I think the difference this time is like, who's around the table?
I'm not organizing a music festival. I'm not organizing a Broadway play.
I'm just partnering with the people who are the best at doing these
things and putting me in the box to market to bring people together,
to stir up some adventure and do this all in the name of a good
John. What are you advising him? To do differently here.
Well, well, here's the thing, man, if he, if he raises the capital properly,
which these conversations are already happening.
And he also has the logistics down with one
of the biggest management companies out of Los Angeles.
All right, these two things. Fire Festival.
One happens if Billy, if,
if it's funded properly and someone else is handling logistics,
solve those two issues, this thing flies, you know,
and as far as musicians showing interest,
money talks, man, money, money talks.