Can a Critical Mass of Victoria’s Secret Models and a Hadid Give Bahamas Tourism an Insta-Boost? – Vanity Fair

Its a tale as old as Instagram. Every April like clockwork, eerily similar photos infiltrate your feed. Its impossible to escape all the 22-year-olds wearing slight variations on a bohemian themeand its about to get even harder.

Theres a new festival aiming to improve upon Coachellas desert carnival with a tropical paradise, and anyone with enough money or big enough Instagram following can attend. Recruiting a bevy of influencers and models to promote it, selling out $1,500 tickets before a lineup was even announced, and promising two weekends worth of hip young things island hopping in the exclusive Bahamian archipelago known as the Exumas, the first annual Fyre Festival has promised to turn the end of April into one long block of Insta-babes having a better time than you.

Well, that's the idea, at least. The actual festival starts Friday.

Fyre Festival is a product of Fyre Media, an entertainment booking startup that that rapper Ja Rule launched with his tech partner Billy McFarland in 2015. As noted above, its closest spiritual forefather in the bloated festival-scape is probably Coachella. But while Coachella is a music festival that turned into a series of brand activations, Fyre Festival is a brand activation that plays at being a festival.

We didn't just want to be a tech company that was a pure enterprise with no consumer awareness, McFarland explained to Vanity Fair on a recent phone call. So a festival was a great way to go and do that and beyond people who are attending. Or rather the event is not an end in and of itself, but a means to an end, intended to inflate the Fyre name.

The country of the Bahamas is equally invested in this grand brand-building experiment. In the months leading up to the first weekend, Bahamian officials coordinated closely with the organizers. Theyve readied the excursions, provided the jet skis for rent, made the yacht marinas available, and tapped the University of Bahamas culinary division to prepare food. The many businesses involved are depending on Fyres ability to deliver.

To announce a festival without name recognition or a finalized lineup, McFarland and Ja Rule personally invited 400 influencers in various sectors. Their only job, besides attending the festival when it came time, was to post an orange square (orange like fire) to Instagram at a certain time on on a certain day in December, announcing Fyre Festival to the public.

The 400 or so that heeded the call include professional surfers, football players, DJ/producers/founders, a short-lived MTV personality and long-term social media personality, and models and models and models and models and models. You almost certainly could have guessed this already, but each have a healthy Instagram followingfive figures minimum.

The announcement itself was preceded by a photo shoot with top-tier models and Jenner-adjacent ingnuesBella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Hailey Baldwin among themwho then posted just prior to the orange takeover. An announcement that there will be an announcement, if you will.

Its influencer inception: Models with niche name recognition spreading word about a more widespread announcement for a high-end festival that itself spreads the word about Ja Rules startup (model/actress Ratajkowski was the only one who included an ad disclaimer with the FTC-required hashtag.)

Fyre takes the music festival concept to its logical extreme: Take the ten-thousand dollar accommodations of the boomer-focused Desert Trip, but with the youth of Coachella and the exclusivity of a tropical yacht club, in which members are permitted to bring the Instagram-famous as dates. Its one of the biggest events the Bahamas has ever hosted, according to a statement from the countrys Ministry of Tourism, and it has used its guest list to draw crowds in the thousands. But what will become of the island chain known for its privacy and exclusivity once the influencers descend?

Fyres Insta-happening in the middle of December helped sell out general admission tickets before any of the performers were announced, which isnt totally unheard of. Coachella regularly breaks ticket sales records before the music lineup is released. But while Coachella sells out on reputation, Fyre sold plenty on a promise: you could have a sexy time on a beach with a pia colada in hand and, oh, maybe Major Lazer will be there, too (they will).

This was the main draw for Chanel Iman, Victorias Secret Angel and partner in the festivals campaign, as she told Vanity Fair on a recent phone call. She had just returned from Coachella, and would be jetting off to Fyre in a couple of weeks. [Festivals are] what I like to do in my free time when Im not working and just go out and have a good time and listen to good music, she explained. Music festivals are just fun.

Iman was there for the promotional photo shoot in November, joined by Hadid, Ratajkowski, Baldwin, Shanina Shaik, Alessandra Ambrosio, Hannah Ferguson, and more. A millennial who has a Twitter account, but prefers Instagram and dabbles in Snapchat might recognize the women in the photos and videos individually, but seeing them all together on a boat is a little more rare. A large and disparate group of TV personalities, models, and beauty pageant winners, the group was differentbut, essentially, all beautifulenough that various fashion and celebrity publications were intrigued. Ja Rule was pleased enough with an article from the fashion Web site Fashionista that pondered Whats Fyre Festival, and Why Are All the Models in the Bahamas Promoting It? to tweet it. The plan, it seemed, was working.

After wrapping the shoot, Iman said they would retire to a bonfire on the beach, where they listened to the ocean under the stars. Those nights were just magical because the stars were just bright and beautiful. And I came with my model friends and we all just enjoyed each other's company around the fire. Read that, scroll through her vacation photos, and try to resist taking out a mortgage to book a villa.

A brief word on the music part of the festival: The line-up is impressive, if a little scattered. Migos, G.O.O.D. Music, Major Lazer, and Blink 182 are among the 40 total acts, and McFarland plans to announce five or ten more before the first weekend. Ja Rule will be performing the first Friday of both weekends.

Much like Coachella, the acts are somewhat incidental, a part of a larger experience. Obviously we think our line-up now is pretty awesome, but the experience is what we're really packaging here, McFarland said. Thats why Fyre is taking over The Exumas; thats why theyre chartering flights from Miami to the islands for every ticket holder; and that's why the organizers are throwing a literal treasure hunt (more on that later).

Its possible to spend in excess of $104,995, per a spokeswoman, to have the Fyre experience. Yachts can be rented for $60,000 on the low end. V.I.P. tickets are $3,500, but you can knock a grand off that price if you B.Y.O.Yacht (the docking fee at the marina, however, is five grand).

Travelers willing to spend this kind of cash are the kind that the Bahamasand especially a more private part of the Bahamas that gets less foot traffic, like The Exumas very much wants to court. According to Lori Pennington-Gray, a tourism professor at University of Florida and consultant, late April is generally considered a post-spring break, pre-summer break shoulder season, and events like music festivals are a tried-and-true way to jack up demand.

Take Indio Valley. In 2016, the city netted $3.18 million in ticket taxes from both Coachella and its subsequent country sister festival, Stagecoach, according to estimates commissioned by the Palm Springs visitors bureau. The estimated spending in the greater Coachella area was $403 million. The two festivals span April, making a final, giant push in the latter end of the areas peak tourism season.

Can Fyre turn an Exumas destination into a tropical Palm Springs, the way Coachella has brought a patina of desert chic to the classic resort town? Though scale of the festivals are much different (last year, Coachella welcomed an estimated 99,000, while Fyre ticket-holder numbers are much lower in the thousands, per a festival spokeswoman), the two host destinations have some things in common. Theyre both easy enough to get to from New York or Los Angeles; they both had a long history in the tourism industry on which these events are built on top of; and they both cater to high-end visitors even without the festivals added boost.

Exumas does Palm Springs one better, however. Besides the clear blue water and unrelenting sunshine, one of its major natural resources is near-total privacy. David Copperfield, Faith Hill, and Muslim spiritual leader Aga Khan are among the wealthy individuals that own entire islands or multiple islands in the chain. The exclusivity helps set it apart from the neighboring Freeport and Grand Bahamas, which bring to mind family vacations and Carnival cruise drop-off points.

One risk of Fyre Festival is that it would compromise the islands exclusivity. As Dr. Pennington-Gray said, You dont want to have a cookie-cutter approach across all destinations [in the Bahamas], so as things like this grow in popularity, you want to really make it your own and kind of customize it to the island. Even if the festival doubles as a summit of the incredibly wealthy partiers, itll still bring a bulk of tourists to an area that relies on privacy to set it apart from its neighbors. An infusion of the Instagram famous, rather than just the moneyed few that can afford traveling to the destination, certainly widens the pool.

Copperfield, for one, is not too worried. He owns Musha Cay, and the luxury retreat on it. I think its terrific, our own Coachella in The Exumas the magician told Vanity Fair.

I think that [Fyre] is definitely a festival that's special and unique just because it's very private. . . , Iman started to explain, trailing off for just a second to find the right description. And kind of like a luxury-type festival. If one were casting around for an identity of a festival before anyone has yet Fyre-d, luxury-type is just as good a description as any. In addition to the yachts and the fitness classes and catering and massages and the pigs (the same pigs that made a cameo on Ben Higgins Bachelor season), there will be a literal treasure hunt. McFarland and Ja Rule developed intellectual and physical challenges with the help of Spartan Races, and theyll reward an adventurous soul willing to explore the cays by foot and by jet ski with prizes valued at more than $1,000,000 in hidden treasures from luxury jewelry and watches to cash and valuable goods, per the ticketing site. The winner of both weekends will get a piece of land on a private beach on Great Exuma Island.

Dr. Pennington-Gray says the ideal attendee, and one the Bahamas is willing to invest in, is a guest that stays for a while and spends a lot. The 400 influencers are a place to start; they will be at the festival for at least the first weekend. Expect another wave of social media brand awareness in the form of bikinis, frozen drinks, hair, and, maybe, actual bands.

Iman, for one, doesnt quite know what to expect. I know that this is their first time doing this, so Im hoping that everything will go as planned, she said. I like adventure, and this is definitely an adventure for me.

She plans to head out after the first weekend. Or maybe not. I might return for the second weekend. I'll see how the first one is and figure out if for the second weekend I am even available.

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Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

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Can a Critical Mass of Victoria's Secret Models and a Hadid Give Bahamas Tourism an Insta-Boost? - Vanity Fair