I remember seeing the disastrous Fyre festival unfolding a couple of years ago and breathing a sigh of relief and "there, but for the grace of God, go I".
We watched the Netflix version of the story last night and it's stayed with me. The shudders of recognition.
Spoilers: this documentary and this post don't reveal much that you won't already have worked out from reading about news coverage at the time: some guys set up a festival, hyped it up with supermodels and celebrity endorsements, took a lot of money in and didn't deliver on what was promised, leaving a lot of people stranded in the Bahamas.
This is the thing: all the way through the people involved in the organisation didn't know whether it was going to flop or be the biggest thing ever (although as they got closer to arrival day, they knew...) but that's normal when you're creating a daring, exciting, experimental experience. We all get used to it and push away the worries that it will all fall down around our ears. That's why some people get into that business - because they love the thrill of not knowing.
And people tell lies. There's an acceptance that you "have to" stretch the truth in order to get people interested in attending or funding. In fact it stretches all across business - just look at how contestants on "The Apprentice" behave - that's the way Billy McFarland was behaving, he was acting up to the stereotype, just also taking millions of dollars from investors and spending them to cover up the existing faults and failures in the event.
But I feel fortunate that I've never been invited to do anything this untested at such a scale, it seems it turned into a nightmare for everyone concerned.
And now I see that there's also a Hulu version of the story out too. I might have to give my body a rest from the stress before watching that one!
