Fyre Festival Failure: Project Management Lessons Learned
I first heard about the Fyre Festival debacle in 2017. All I knew then was that rapper Ja Rule was involved in the promotion of an event in the Bahamas that did not go well. That was pretty much it.
In 2019, the Fyre Festival documentary came out on Netflix (if you haven’t watched it, go and watch it!) and I got a deeper insight into how much of a charade and ultimate disaster it was. In quick summary (culled from good ol’ Wikipedia): Fyre Festival was a failed “luxury music festival” founded by Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre Media Inc, and rapper Ja Rule. It was created with the intent of promoting the company’s Fyre app for booking music talent.
Considering my project management background (and strong belief that all areas of our life can be viewed through the project management lens), here are three lessons learned from the Fyre Festival failure:
- Risk Management is a mandatory part of Project Management
Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for Billy and his Fyre Festival team. (Billy, it’s like you angered your “village people" o). From selection of an inappropriate location to insufficient funds for payment of headlining performers and hired gourmet chef to a downpour of rain the night before the outdoor festival was set to begin. Unfortunately, it seems they didn’t have well thought-out ‘contingency plans’ established beforehand in the event that something (or some things) didn’t go according to the desired plan.
When it comes to project planning, you must proactively factor in contingency plans. If plan A falls through (which is possible since none of us are God and can control everything that happens), there should already be an established plan B waiting to be activated. Otherwise, you are left in a ‘reactive’ mode and respond to unplanned occurrences (like rain starting during your outdoor event) in a confused, disorganised, and haphazard manner — which results in high stress levels, panic-fueled action (e.g. Billy asking his gay event planner Andy to perform sexual favors for the Head of Customs at the local airport in exchange for the release of four seized trucks full of Evian water they had purchased for the festival), sloppy performance, and unfavorable outcomes.
2. Under-Promise and Over-Deliver; Not the Other Way Around
The Fyre Festival fiasco provides us an excellent example of what false advertising looks like. The festival was promoted heavily on social media, by well known super models and celebrities (e.g. Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Ja Rule, etc), as the event of the year with promises of private jets to fly guests into the remote island, sandy white beaches, performances by famous musical acts (e.g. Blink 182, Tyga), private villas for guests, gourmet cuisine, and VIP experience packages — which attendees paid thousands of dollars in ticket costs for. Instead, what they got was the following:
When it comes to stakeholders (e.g. customers, clients, partners), err on the side of caution about the project deliverables you commit to provide and the timelines you accept based on historical experience, research, and risk factoring. Otherwise, you risk not being able to deliver at the quality and time expected which leads to anger, disappointment, and a loss of trust in you by stakeholders — which can severely damage your relationship in the long-term.
3. If Your Business Case is No Longer Justified, Abort the Project
A business case evaluates the benefits, costs and risks of a new project. It serves as the foundation for the approval or rejection of a project proposal. Even though a project is initially approved, part of effective project management is reviewing the business case at several points throughout the lifecycle of the project, assessing if the business case is still justified, and if not, deciding to discontinue the project.
There were several points at which Billy and his team could have chosen to cancel the festival and avoid complete disaster but they didn’t. They could have canceled when they realized they had insufficient funds to execute their plan. They could have canceled when they realized they did not have sufficient time to setup the required infrastructure ahead of the festival start date. They could have canceled when the musical acts lined up started pulling out. They could have even canceled when they saw the drenched and dirtied refuge tents the morning of the event (that guests were meant to sleep in), thanks to heavy rain from the previous night. But, they didn’t. They allowed hundreds of guests to fly into the island under uncomfortable flight conditions, only to meet a refuge-style camp site with no musical acts or celebrities around, wet tents and soiled beds, and cheese sandwich dinners.
When the business case is no longer justified for your project, you should choose to abort for the greater good of your vision, team, and company. Otherwise, you continue on with a project that will result in a negative ROI on the time, human and financial resources invested — not to mention the negative reputation with stakeholders you risk getting.
There are several other lessons to be gleaned from the Fyre Festival (e.g. the importance of timely and transparent communication with relevant stakeholders, effective team selection, etc) however these are the three that stuck with me the most because they reminded me of a few projects I’ve worked on in the past where I did not bring them into play and the consequences were nothing pretty.
Oh, the memories :)
