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The Leaked Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Is Beyond Parody
- zensavona 9y ago"Fyre has a unique goal and inspiration: the exploration of the uncharted inspired by and referencing the five elements of the earth" ...oh
- erikj 9y agoWas this generated by a Markov chain?
- minimaxir 9y agoEarth, Fyre, Wind, Water, Heart?
- walrus01 9y agohttps://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
- stuart78 9y agoLOL, I forgot about that. Staggering genius is rarely understood in its own time.
- CamperBob2 9y agoI don't know whether to be happy or sad that Umberto Eco didn't live to see that.
- walrus01 9y agoI would like to see a deep analysis of it written by the Timecube guy.
- stefantalpalaru 9y ago> Umberto Eco https://i.imgur.com/h9NDpy5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/h9NDpy5.jpg
- kej 9y agoHe did, though. The Pepsi thing was from '08, Eco died in '16.
- rosstex 9y agoThis is magical.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- egypturnash 9y agoAysh, Mytal, Wyyd, Watyr, and Fyre. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing
- navbaker 9y agoIs there a word for that slightly scummy, uncomfortable feeling you're left with after reading a particularly empty piece of marketing drivel?
- BWStearns 9y agoGerman probably has one.
- wordupmaking 9y agoWerbungsleereschmierigkeitsgefühl, maybe.
- amichal 9y agogoogle managed to index this within 2 hours and so it now shows this comment as the only instance of that "word" on the internet
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lawless123 9y agoThat's so Werbungsleereschmierigkeitsgefühl
- walrus01 9y agoI'm trying to imagine some sort of word that combines nauseated with loathing. I'm sure in German you can concatenate a word together.
- parallel 9y agoNot specific to the context but "despair" seems to fit.
- leroy_masochist 9y agoI believe you're referring to the "douche chills"
- irickt 9y agoAn insider who saw the failure coming (includes a promo video also like parody) ... http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas...
- ufmace 9y agoBest line is at the end: > They overlooked so many very basic things. And baby, they forgot to make me sign an NDA. What are the odds that they made plenty of legal mistakes in addition to the logistical ones? I would bet that everyone involved in this will have a very bad time over the next few months and years, and anyone who backed it financially will think harder before committing serious money when all they've seen is a slick marketing campaign.
- badosu 9y agoOn Wednesday, Ja Rule arrived for a “site visit.” I don’t know if he actually visited the “site” but he did spend a lot of time on a yacht, according to his Instagram. Meanwhile the event planners were holed up indoors putting together a game plan and a budget. With so little having been prepared ahead of time, the official verdict was that it would take $50 million to pull off. Planners also warned that it would be not be up to the standard they had advertised. The best idea, they said, would be to roll everyone’s tickets over to 2018 and start planning for the next year immediately. They had a meeting with the Fyre execs to deliver the news. A guy from the marketing team said, “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.” This paragraph is amazing, I bet you can find an anecdote pretty similar in the startup world..
- drewrv 9y ago> “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.” Well, mission accomplished I suppose.
- walrus01 9y agoIf it had not been a complete and utter failure, the pitch deck would have been just another unremarkable example of marketing/PR fluffery, and wouldn't have been worth commenting on. Doesn't look any different from media marketing I've seen for things that were successful.
- ErikHuisman 9y agoAgreed. It was definitely a failure in execution not necessarily in vision. If done right it kinda sounds like a dope experience.
- walrus01 9y agoI'm highly skeptical that no matter how successful the logistics could have been, that I could ever describe anything involving Blink 182 as a "dope experience".
- ErikHuisman 9y agohaha true
- austenallred 9y agoIf you're looking for BS marketing-speak this is amateur work. Want to see the pros? Sit back and watch Arnell take it (and Pepsi) to the next level: https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell.... There's literally a slide that references "light path with gravitational pull" -> "gravitational pull of Pepsi", "relativity of space and time" -> "Pepsi aisle." Or the slide referencing the expansion of the universe to explain "the Pepsi orbits" Among my favorite documents of all-time.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoI had totally forgotten about this. I'm still not sure if it's a joke or not. The fact that this cost 1M is what takes all the fun out of it. My guess is a mid-level designer scratched something out in a few weeks and then they said: well, shit; we need to make it look like we spent a lot of money and time on this. Get some nerds in here and have them write down some geometry phrases. It's actually depressing once you think about it how much companies will pay for bullshit like this and very little for other things. Salesmanship I guess.
- jimjimjim 9y agoI have never seen such a large group of pretentious vain B-ark candidates before in my life.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoYeah, these bozos make telephone sanitizers look downright useful.
- ouid 9y agoI thought the moral was that telephone sanitizers ended up being the most important people in the world.
- jimjimjim 9y agoyep, telephone sanitizers have always been useful. In fact when it comes to sanitizing things in the world, the more the better. Humans are filthy. but most of other people there really were pretty bad.e.g use leaves as money then burn down all forests to increase scarcity and drive up the value of their leaves.
- jl6 9y agoIs it irony that in our current age of handled-daily-but-never-washed smartphones, telephone sanitizer could actually be a useful job?
- threeseed 9y agoDisappointing that HN of all places couldn't be a little more discerning when reviewing this. Because from what I've heard there was a legitimate business problem that Fyre was attempting to solve. (1) All of the middle men between talent and event organisers and (2) the lack of luxury concert events. Are they completely inept at following through with this ? Yes. But the idea wasn't that bad. And they deserve credit for getting so many celebrities on board.
- baron816 9y agoI agree. All of this may appear incredibly douchy, but they had a viable business model. Now that they are most certainly finished, there should be plenty of opportunity for someone else to totally steal the idea. Hopefully not someone as incompetent and lazy.
- ceejayoz 9y ago> All of this may appear incredibly douchy, but they had a viable business model. Where, exactly, did the viability of their business model get demonstrated?
- anigbrowl 9y ago'Find cheap land and exploit it' has a long if not exactly distinguished history.
- robryan 9y agoIn this case it is arguable whether it was actually cheap, after having the transport everything to a remote location.
- strunz 9y agoHow about by the fact that it the marketing plan worked, the hype was there, and the tickets sold out?
- a3n 9y agoThe Lyre Festival.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoOr Dire, as it were.
- nharada 9y ago"We've crafted a team of rockstars ... Combined we've sold 60 MM records worldwide" Glad to hear they're giving the whole team credit for those sales numbers.
- puranjay 9y agoFor some reason, the fact that it was Ja Rule makes it even more morbidly funny. The only reason people remember Ja anymore is because of Dave Chapelle's bit, and that was in the context of an actually huge disaster - 9/11
- Mendenhall 9y ago"The cultural experience of the decade" I mean they may have got that part right.
- anigbrowl 9y agoYou know it will become a boast to have been there a few years from now. I just got back myself, I could tell you some stories if you were to ah, hook me up.
- Geekette 9y agoThe post states they sought $25M in funding. Curious to know if they were successful in closing that amount.
- mfrye0 9y agoI'm curious about that too. They must have gotten close or raised all of it, as they actually attempted to have the event.
- notahacker 9y agoDidn't they raise a lot of cash by selling tickets at absurd prices and still not have the funds to achieve details like paying artists and providing the standard of accommodation they promised?
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago> [Kendall Jenner] stands as part of, and representative of, the Fyre tribe. Well...yeah, that's about right.
- golfer 9y agoFyre Festival feels like something Jon Ralphio (Parks and Rec) would put together.
- easilyBored 9y agoMeanwhile the UN Refugee agency reported that one of their warehouses had been looted and many of their tents were stolen http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.3122436.1493647015!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/spl1487746-001.jpg http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.3122436.14936470... ;)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- panic 9y agoHere's a direct link to the deck itself: https://www.scribd.com/document/346949516/Fyre-Festival-Pitch-Deck https://www.scribd.com/document/346949516/Fyre-Festival-Pitc...
- puranjay 9y agoSocial media has really become a cesspool. All these "influencers" promoting crap without a single care for their actions. It's like how the search landscape was about 10 years back. Google clamping down on terrible affiliate pages was the best thing to happen to search. Social media needs similar policing.
- fefesafaea 9y agoThe real question is how long until someone kickstarts a fyrefest gone right.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThe whole concept of Fyre Fest I'd leveraging social media influencers to extract money from the influenced; it's it exactly a Kickstarter-friendly concept (well, unless you use the influencers to promote a KS itself.) As to a Kickstarted festival of the type Fyre purported to offer purchasers, it seems to be explicitly prohibited by Kickstarter's terms, falling squarely into the travel services / vacation packages prohibition.
- mfrye0 9y agoThe funny thing about this whole shit show is that could have been me. Before transitioning to tech in SF, I had a career in the entertainment industry down in LA. My buddy pitched me with marketing jargon just like this for a Coachella style festival, and I got sucked in. We spent on and off a year working on it and actually made decent progress. The biggest band we had on board was Pearl Jam. Eventually it became obvious we were in over our heads and that my buddy had no idea what he was doing.
- mdekkers 9y agoYep. Before I got into technology, I was a lighting designer, and still dabble on and off. Producing a safe, quality, decent-sized event is hard and it is even harder to do so profitably. Every now and again someone asks me to be part of organising something, and my answer is always "no, thanks for asking, and please rethink your plans". I have seen too many experienced organisers fail at this - even when you do everything right, things can still go badly.
- mfrye0 9y agoDefinitely. To get anywhere near profitable you need to have the right people and to be in it for the long haul.
- michaelchisari 9y agoAre these "influencers" paid for what they're doing? Is there a paper trail? Or were they as swept up in the hype as everyone else, blithely talking it up for that reason? If the former, what culpability do they have in any potential lawsuit?
- mirimir 9y ago> On Monday, the festival organizers were accused by attendees of fraud and were sued for $100 million. It might only be a matter of time before the Fyre Starters are part of a lawsuit, too. That would be cool :)
- aaron695 9y agoSorry, but I loved the pitch, it's a pitch not a business plan, it's a bit silly but it's also exciting. Sorry, I love the idea - "Throughout the next five years, we will traverse the globe to find untouched lands and convert them into unparalleled experiences. Fyre will work to bring life to each region.' What's with all the hate? I wasn't even that expensive for a concert, a lot of people from overseas pay that amount to go to Burning Man. Save for a few years and it's possible for most people on HN. Whats with HN reveling in failure in this startup?
- dreamcompiler 9y agoMaybe because it's a couple of clueless rich bros trying to marry Burning Man with Goa and completely missing the point of both?
- nwrk 9y agoReality Fyre fueled twitter photos http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/04/sad-and-funny-tweets-from-ja-rules-failed-fyre-festival.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/04/sad-and-funny-tweets-from...
- bleair 9y agoThe slide deck contains words like ideate... I wonder if these slides will _inspire_ VCs in the bay area and/or the show Silicon Valley... as I understand it they did raise a lot of capital and even if they are forced to give 1/2 of back that's a pretty good return for not doing any actual work.
- macawfish 9y agoI think it'd be nice if ad-blockers would block influencers.
- nradov 9y agoI know you meant it as a joke, but I would honestly pay for a browser plug in that automatically blocked any mention of people with more than X Instagram followers. I don't want to live on the same planet as those pretentious idiots.
- easilyBored 9y agoWell, the pitch deck more or less did offer something different, to be part of something new, to make them think etc. They undoubtedly delivered.
- unclesaamm 9y agoI took the liberty of correcting one of their slides. You're welcome, Fyre! https://imgflip.com/i/1o9bzk https://imgflip.com/i/1o9bzk
- nikanj 9y agoAs evidenced by sources such as 1 and 2, the management at Fyre are not the kind of people who will accept responsibility, or blame. Knowing how big the budget was, how much money and influence the people involved wield, and how out-of-balance the US legal system is, I feel extremely bad for the various contractors who will inevitably get sued to oblivion for this mess. I can just imagine how it feels, trying to to do your best with a boss who won't accept no for an answer, then being forced into bankruptcy once things go sideways. 1) http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas-disaster.html http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/fyre-festival-exumas-bahamas... 2) https://twitter.com/Ruleyork/status/858025172942675968 https://twitter.com/Ruleyork/status/858025172942675968
- notahacker 9y agoNever mind the non-ironic use of the "ideate" and "brand synergy" and multiple pages of Instagram influencers, the thing which should have raised alarm bells is that a large leadership team appears to not include a single person responsible for logistics. I realise marketing matters for these things, but when your product is an overseas music festival, you probably want to be emphasising people's responsibilities for overseeing the assembly of the venue, flights and accommodation, permits, security, contractors' responsibilities etc ahead of the front end developer for the website. I don't you need the benefit of hindsight to see the former might be a bigger challenge