This Fyre Festival documentary is really hitting home. Most won't remember my delusions of grandeur 20 years ago. I was running an advertising company, recording studio, record label, managing almost 20 artists (at one time), broke, delivering pizza to stay alive.
The reason for the whole music endeavor was my hip hop artists, SmokeSkreen & J. Money. Cash Money Records had just proven with Juvenile's crew. You could make a group album. Then a round of solo albums. Then come back with the next group album. Good recipe for anything. Even Marvel movies. So for our record release party. I decided to throw a festival concert with SmokeSkreen headlining.
The idea took off and with no money. I had signed 30 bands to play with promises, of course. I promised myself out of my ass for this. My roommate & new business partner spent 8 months. Doing everything that needed to be done. The last month was almost full time on the project and yes, we pulled it off.
All the vendors, volunteers and bands showed up. The paying people didn't. We had 100s of printed t-shirts, 100s of cds with all the bands, food & beverages left over. My asshole soundman. Cussed out my main stage headliners, Suicisonic from Baltimore. So they walked. My headliners on the small stage Monolith. They were verbally cussing us and putting the whole thing down on the mic. I personally loved it. My business partner didn't.
I ended up losing my businesses and studio. My best friend deserted me. I had to file bankruptcy and pay off loans for years. I even had to go get a full time job for a while. I'm just glad. I didn't set off to fraud anyone from the beginning. I made good on all I could after and no one came for my head. There was a few, Letters to the Editor about me. That was the only social media at that time.
I think if I tried it now with the social media impact. It would be an incredible different turnout. I also know that, this same social media will be following me the whole journey and waiting for me to fail also.
