NetflixLimeWire has scooped up one of the internet’s most infamous brands, acquiring the rights to Fyre Festival in a cheeky $245,300 eBay bid.
Fyre Festival, pitched in 2017 as a luxury music getaway in the Bahamas, became a cultural disaster. Guests who paid thousands were met with disaster relief tents, portable toilets, and infamously grim cheese sandwiches instead of the promised celebrity chef meals.
Organizer Billy McFarland was later convicted of fraud and sentenced to six years in prison, cementing Fyre’s place in history as the ultimate hype-gone-wrong event.
LimeWire is relaunching Fyre Festival… sort of
Back in July, McFarland put the Fyre Fest IP, trademarks, and assets up for auction on eBay. Bidding started at one cent and ended at $245,300 after a week of competition.
On September 16, LimeWire confirmed it had secured the brand, joking in its press release: “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
The auction even drew bids from Ryan Reynolds’ creative agency Maximum Effort. After the auction, Reynolds congratulated LimeWire, quipping: “I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.”
Despite the name, LimeWire, a file-sharing service that was popular in the early 2000s, doesn’t plan to stage another doomed island festival. Instead, it wants to reimagine Fyre as a cultural brand.
“Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history,” said LimeWire CEO Julian Zehetmayr. “We’re not bringing the festival back — we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”
Related
COO Marcus Feistl added: “We’re not here to repeat the mistakes — we’re here to own the meme and do it right… it’s our chance to show what happens when you pair cultural relevance with real execution.”
LimeWire teased plans for a “reimagined vision” of Fyre that goes beyond digital into “real-world experiences, community, and surprise.” The company didn’t share specifics, but the festival’s official site now features a waitlist for updates.
For now, Fyre Festival lives again, not on an island, but as an internet experiment in brand resurrection.