A group of people who purchased tickets to the infamous Fyre Festival were handed a loss in court earlier this week.
Earlier this week, a judge tossed out the class-action lawsuit against Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland, as well as rapper Ja Rule and the failed brand’s head of marketing, Grant Margolin.
Although Ja Rule managed to escape a $100 million lawsuit and was absolved of any responsibility for the doomed festival, a scorned ticket holder named Daniel Jung filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of anyone “who purchased tickets to and/or made travel arrangements in connection with Fyre Festival.”
Ticket holders paid anywhere from $500 to $12,000 to attend the festival, which promised a luxurious stay on the island of Exuma in the Bahamas, in addition to amenities like morning yoga, Bahamian-style sushi, a pig roast, and performances by A-lister’s like Migos, Lil Yachty, Pusha-T, Blink-182, and others.
Instead of the celebrity treatment, attendees were treated to cheese sandwiches, and shabby lodging, like rickety tents, which Jung said put every concert-goer’s life in jeopardy on the remote island.
Jung claimed Billy McFarland directed a scam by fraudulently promoting the event with popular influencers, and duping their fans in the process.
Earlier this week, a judge with the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York tossed Jung’s class-action lawsuit because he failed to provide enough information on some of the members in the lawsuit, and the actual damages they suffered.
The court ruled that Jung was seeking a “one size fits all” award for the members in the class-action lawsuit, without providing enough information to justify a monetary award.
“Daniel Jung has not revealed which statements he heard or saw, when he heard or saw them or when he acted in detrimental reliance by purchasing tickets to the Festival or expending money on travel,” according to the ruling.
“With ticket purchasers relying on different statements made over an extended period of time, by several different actors, Jung has not shown that his claims are typical of those that would be made by absent members of the would-be class. Jung has not demonstrated that it is likely that he heard or saw and relied upon statements that are typical of those relied upon by would-be members of the class. While the threshold for typicality is low, Jung’s thin presentation fails to meet the typicality requirement,” a judge wrote.
Jung’s battle with the Fyre Festival is not over just yet, since he did win a small victory.
A judge is planning to conduct a hearing on some of the remaining claims against Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland, where members of the class-action lawsuit will be able to provide evidence showing how they lost money by relying on “a materially false statement causing him or her to incur quantifiable damages.”
While Ja Rule and Grant Margolin escaped the lawsuits without any consequences, Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was not so lucky.
In March of 2018, McFarland was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and sentenced to six years in federal prison.
