Billy McFarland’s permit for Fyre Fest 2 will only allow 12-hour listening party with 250 people

It appears that the permit that Billy McFarland has obtained for Fyre Festival 2 only allows for a 12-hour listening party that must have fewer than 300 people.

• READ MORE: The 10 most WTF moments from Netflix’s jaw-dropping Fyre Festival documentary

The disgraced festival organiser, who was behind the first tumultuous edition of Fyre Fest, previously announced that the event would be making its “return” from May 30 to June 2 this year.

Initially, he said it was scheduled for Isla Mujeres in Mexico, however, those plans later changed after the Isla Mujeres tourist board denied having any “knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it.” It was then said to be taking place at Playa Del Carmen, although recent reports saw officials for the Mexican city deny any involvement.

In a bid to prove that the event was in fact going ahead as scheduled, McFarland shared a timeline of events that had already taken place – including various permits he had obtained to get the second instalment of the festival up and running.

That being said, a closer look at the paperwork seemingly shows that the permits granted authorise little more than a 250-capacity, multi-day listening party.

Dated March 18, one of the permits shown in the documents allows for Fyre Fest 2 to be held at Martina Beach Club. That being said, it only allows for a maximum of 250 people, only allows for a total of 12hours (between midnight to 4am each day between May 30 and June 1), and does not allow for any live performances.

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Instead of live performances, a permit obtained on March 26 only allows for “música grabada,” or recorded music to be played at the event.

When McFarland first began claiming that Fyre Festival was making its comeback, he said at an official press conference that it would allow for 1,800 guests and see live performances from 40 artists.

As highlighted by Consequence, further evidence that Fyre Fest 2 isn’t happening comes as tickets have been removed from the official ticketing partner, Soldout.com. Before they were taken off the site, tickets were sold for between $1,400 and $25,000 (£1,081-£19,305). Premium packages were priced as high as $1.1million (£850,000).

Ahead of the rumoured second instalment, a former Fyre Festival investor Andy King warned of “a lot of red flags” over the event’s planned reboot.

The opening year of Fyre Fest took place eight years ago, and was originally set to run over two weekends on a private beach in the Bahamas. However, it was revealed to be fraudulent once punters arrived on the scene, with inadequate conditions and a lack of food and water. The debacle was then captured in the now-iconic Netflix documentary FYRE.

The original edition in 2017 was reportedly set to include performances from Blink-182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, Migos, Pusha T, Tyga and more. McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud.

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