“We ask for everyone’s patience and cooperation during this difficult time, as we work as quickly<br />and safely as we can to remedy this unforeseeable situation.”<br />In an interview, Mr. McFarland, 25, called Friday “the hardest day of my life.” He said the idea for the event had come to him last summer, after he<br />and Ja Rule were forced to make an emergency landing in the Bahamas during a flying lesson in a “small, old plane.” A social-media-fueled musical festival there, Mr. McFarland hoped, would combine three of his biggest passions: internet programming, the ocean and rap music.<br />Attendees were told they could “start each day with morning yoga<br />and guided meditation on the beach,” while also enjoying “massages, henna tattooing, sound healing, chill-out sessions and a festive Bahamian junkanoo parade kicking off each weekend.” Descriptions of the food options pledged “a uniquely authentic island cuisine experience,” with “local seafood, Bahamian-style sushi and even a pig roast.”<br />The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing.<br />At one point in the evening, Ms. Kumar said, staff members dumped a bunch of unopened containers — like “Amazon shipment boxes” — at the site,<br />and instructed concertgoers to rifle through them for anything that was missing from their tents.<br />“Neither of us had developed an island or a festival before.”<br />Still, after a few months of planning — including adding sewage piping<br />and buying an ambulance in New Jersey and shipping it to the island — the organizers thought they were ready for the crowds until the storm on Thursday morning washed away some of what they had built.<br />“Not one thing that was promised on the website was delivered,” said Shivi Kumar, 33, who works in technology sales in New York,<br />and came with a handful of friends expecting the deluxe “lodge” package for which they had paid $3,500: four king size beds and a chic living room lounge.
