Fyre Festival’s mysterious buyer confirmed to be LimeWire
LimeWire have confirmed they have acquired the rights to Fyre Festival from Billy McFarland.
The file-sharing company, which rose to prominence in the 2000s before being shut down due to copyright infringement, was relaunched in 2022. Now, it’s announced its plans for Fyre Festival in a press release knowingly titled, ‘LimeWire Acquires Fyre Festival Brand — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?’
The company said they have plans to “unveil a reimagined vision for Fyre — one that expands beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise”, but didn’t reveal, at this stage, precisely what the future would entail for Fyre.
LimeWire CEO Julian Zehetmayr said in the statement, “Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history. We’re not bringing the festival back – we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”
Meanwhile, Marcus Feistl, COO of LimeWire, commented of the acquisition, “We’re not here to repeat the mistakes — we’re here to own the meme and do it right. Fyre became a symbol of everything that can go wrong. Now it’s our chance to show what happens when you pair cultural relevance with real execution.”
The press release also includes a comment from Ryan Reynolds, whose company, Maximum Effort, was outbid in their attempts to acquire Fyre by LimeWire. The Deadpool star said: “Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest. I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.”
In July, founder McFarland announced his plans to sell the Fyre Festival brand on eBay, which was eventually bought for $245,000. McFarland was live-streaming the final hours of the auction and remarked to viewers when it ended, “Damn. This sucks, it’s so low.”
Meanwhile, last week, Taiki Waititi announced he’s currently developing a comedy musical about the Fyre Festival saga, titled Fyre Fest The Musical. He said of the project: “I think the idea is exciting, weird, and potentially disastrous, which seems apt and is how I like to work. I can’t wait to get started and snatch me some of that sweet American theatre money.”
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