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Fyre Festival Organizers Get Hit With A $100 Million Lawsuit

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High profile plaintiff’s attorney Mark Geragos is taking aim at Ja Rule and Billy McFarland for their negligence regarding the catastrophic Fyre Festival, which was set to be held at a “private” island in the Bahamas from April 28-30 and May 5-7. The festival was canceled after the first day. Supermodels Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, and musical acts such as Tyga, Blink-182 and Major Lazer were set to perform before the entire event was shut down. Attendees, who paid up to $100,000 to attend the event are livid, and one concert-goer has hired Geragos, who has filed a $100,000,00 class action.

The Central District of California lawsuit, with Ja Rule, McFarland and Fyre Media as defendants, is claiming fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and negligent misrepresentation.

The festival posted a lengthy statement on its website which included: “We apologize for what all of our guests and staff went through over the last 24 hours and will work tirelessly to make this right. All festival goers this year will be refunded in full. We will be working on refunds over the next few days and will be in touch directly with guests with more details.”

Knowing Geragos, he probably will not accept this and pursue the suit, which cites that "lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees — suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions." It seems like a refund won’t fit the bill.

Geragos, in dramatic fashion, goes on to state, "Defendants instructed Attendees to upload funds to a wristband for use at the festival rather than bringing any cash…As such, Attendees were unable to purchase basic transportation on local taxis or buses, which accept only cash…at least one attendee suffered a medical emergency and lost consciousness after being locked inside a nearby building with other concert-goers waiting to be airlifted from the island." Again, refund not accepted.

Predicting the calamity, Blink-182 jumped ship before the festival began. “Regrettably, and after much careful and difficult consideration, we want to let you know that we won’t be performing at Fyre Fest in the Bahamas this weekend and next weekend,” the band said in a tweet. “We’re not confident that we would have what we need to give you the quality of performances we always give fans.”

The Wall Street Journal last month noted that some of the music artists had not yet received their contractually obligated payment and that attendees were “nervous as the festival’s ‘concierge’ team has been slow to provide them with logistical details.”

It might be hard for Geragos and his team to prove fraud if, according to the Fyre website and due diligence, it is determined that Ja and McFarland were simply “overwhelmed” and did everything they could to make the festival work. The lawyers will carefully scrutinize the contracts to determine if certain assurances and guarantees were promised to the attendees. It has been rumored that Ja and McFarland reached out to attendees to tell them not to attend and that the Fyre team had to renegotiate guarantees made to artists as costs started to skyrocket. There has been no word of any of the artists filing suit. For now, it doesn’t look like Geragos is accepting Ja Rule’s attempt to “Put It On Me."