True Life: I Was Hired To Work At Fyre Festival.

I was hired by a friend for a photography company that I'll keep unnamed per that company's request. They, like most subcontractors for Fyre, were among Billy's many victims in this elaborate scheme, so please keep in mind when reading this, that the nature of con people is that they're good at well, conning people. It's easy to see in 20/20 for hindsight, in the moment it's much more likely people are given the benefit of the doubt and you move forward, especially when that benefit is being backed up by elaborate wire transfer fraud you are, of course, unaware of. With that said, the warning signs were there from the jump, but the general vibe seemed to be "when someone calls you and tells you they'd like to pay you to go to the Bahamas, you don't say no unless you think a kidney might go missing".... Right?... right.

I received an official offer to work the festival about two weeks prior to gates opening and then effectively not much information besides everything was a go and my itinerary, travel, and lodging information would be in my inbox shortly. A week out I still didn't have this info, but it was explained that the festival was just administratively very short staffed and confirmations were running slow. I'd have a flight, a hotel, and I shouldn't worry. I got travel confirmation less than 24 hours prior to leaving, but still no lodging or itinerary. While normally I'd just hang it up right then and there, I didn't want to leave my friend's company high and dry. I trusted them, regardless of any of Fyre's mishegoss, knew they would have my back and decided worst case scenario I'd gotten a free trip the Bahamas.

The next day we arrived in Nassau and were brought to what felt like someone's vacation home turned into a staff hospitality tent. While it wasn't the fancy welcome we were probably expecting considering the hype surrounding this festival, it certainly wasn't any worse than most of these I've seen at any other festival, though without the usual person collecting meal tickets and more for a "free for all, there's water and sandwich stuff have at it" vibe. By the time we got there, most of the food was gone, so we were informed that dinner would be served at our accommodations on Exuma, which as it turned out was to be a cruise ship off the coast of the festival island.

We took a chartered flight to Exuma and stopped by a gated mansion that doubled as a safe for some of our gear and then took what felt like coast guard style rescue boats from a small dock to the cruise ship, which was old but fine enough for the night. It wasn't ideal to transport our bags and gear via tiny boat, but it was late, we hadn't eaten yet, and it was starting to become clear it was either this or no lodging option, so we rolled with the punches. At this point, we met the site operations manager who had visibly not gotten any sleep somewhere in the ballpark of 24-72 hours and was meekly giving handshakes to people. The look on his face might as well had been a giant red painted sign that said: "Turn Back Now: ALL IS FUCKED".

We expressed concerns of a photo team's accommodations requiring travel on a boat back and forth which required that gear be precariously handled over water. We were told an alternative option was being looked into and to get some rest since we'd be visiting the site tomorrow (Wednesday aka the day before the Festival starts) for a walkthrough to get the lay of the land. On Wednesday, instead of the entire team going for the walkthrough, only about half the group was sent, so the group that was left behind, including me, hung out on the cruise ship.

We started to receive texts from the team on site that the site was well to put it nicely, not finished. We also took note on our strange cruise ship day off of all the chatter from other occupants of the ship, people who were supposed to be employed as bartenders and other service workers, who were all sharing the latest rumors of the festivals imminent demise based on the lack of organization they were experiencing. Our team's facial expressions upon returning to the ship were at best grim and upon learning of an incoming storm, we promptly packed all our things and headed to our new accommodations which would be back on Nassau at an all-inclusive sandals like resort.

At this point, I realized I had now been here for two days, played what amounted to the largest game of hurry up and wait I've ever experienced, and started to begin tallying up the festival's cost of my existence in the Bahamas. Multiple chartered flights, cruise ship stay, ground transportation, inclusive resort stay, was all adding up quickly considering our team was close to 20 people, and that was only OUR team. Regardless of any site operations or lack thereof, it just didn't seem financially possible for these numbers to add up.

We got back to Nassau and checked into a really nice resort, keep in mind half of our gear is still being stored, presumably safe, on Exuma. We started to prepare for the next day and then the storm hit and man did it ever hit. It was big enough to make you nervous even inside a huge iron clad like resort building. We were told to plan on waking up early regardless, that the storm would break, and to plan on heading to the festival site to begin shooting day one. We woke up to a text that we would have the day off.

So we did what anyone would do with a day off in the Bahamas at an all-inclusive resort, we partied. To be honest, our team, at least on that day had the best time of anyone attending Fyre Festival. Then the second storm hit, but this one of course not in the form of weather, but in the form of social media. Artists were canceling left and right, images, including the since legendary sandwich, started pouring in. It became apparent there was not going to be a Friday of this festival. What's wild however was that even in the face of all of this, all of the images, the social posts, everything, the festival was still communicating to our team that both Friday and Saturday would be happening and to prepare for this.

The next morning our team leaders gathered us to explain that the festival had been canceled and they would be buying our flights back home. They were upset, frustrated, and in general, feeling pretty defeated. It was disheartening to see, especially considering the fun we had the previous day. We left for the airport, which was nothing short of chaotic. There were people who had made it back to the main Island but couldn't leave, there were people just getting there trying to figure out how to turn right around, I literally watched Disclosure walk off a plane and try to immediately board it again.

The team leaders stayed behind to sort through what was next for them, the money they were assuredly still owed, and the gear that was still locked up on Exuma. Days later we got confirmation that a member of our team had convinced a small prop plane to fly into Exuma and wait for him while he tracked down the gear. Keep in mind this is during a state of emergency declared by the country, so flying anything was a complicated endeavor at this point. Our guy got the gear back and at least for our team/my friend's company, our involvement on the islands came to a close.

In the days after, I was reached out to by every news outlet who was researching feverously for people on the ground to comment. I declined to get involved and chose instead to opt for twitter commentary. Despite having some fun in the Bahamas and the memes floating around being top notch, it was setting in exactly how many people beyond those we deemed deserved this kind of treatment for once, rich white social media obsessed millennials, this truly affected. The toll to artisans, small business entrepreneurs, and locals alike couldn't even be properly tallied up.

Ultimately, I went to Fyre festival to capture what promised to be the culmination of our collective conscious Instagram "goals" dreams and instead didn't work a single day or step foot on the actual site. I effectively broke even on the trip after collecting a fraction of my fee and moved on with an experience that despite not quite being in the thick of it, still seems surreal.

What I will say to wrap this all up is that, at least in terms of the Hulu film, it was pretty on the mark. I never met Billy, but from everything I witnessed either first hand or by one degree of separation, he is an absolute psychopathic con man and the entire thing smelled of failure from the jump. Like a real-life version of the hit 60's film The Producers, in which two conmen try and make a flop of a show in order to collect the insurance money over the potential ticket sales, but from the opposite angle. In my assured non-expert opinion, I'll say that if any good came from this, it's that we all, at least I hope, have learned our lesson of the house of cards social media truly can be. Not to make this a lesson, but maybe if there was one, it was us finally seeing in real time that not everything that glitters on Instagram is gold.