Official Fyre Festival merch to be auctioned by federal government, funds to benefit McFarland scam victims
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office will soon begin to auction off Fyre Festival merchandise, in an effort to repay the fraud victims who’ve yet to receive compensation. The premise of the auction’s potential for commercial success lies in the infamy of Fyre Festival—widespread knowledge of the music festival fraud scandal will likely cause the official merchandise recouped by the federal government to become highly coveted collector’s items.
“We have an assortment of the ‘real thing’ Fyre Festival-branded tee-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, hats, wristbands, and medallions,” a spokesman from the United States Marshals Service’s (USMS) Manhattan office told Vulture. “We know that there is tremendous interest in these items in the metro area in particular.”
The USMS will facilitate the auction online, and will distribute the funds generated through merchandise sales to verified ticket purchasers and investors. The profits, however, will not cover Billy McFarland‘s debt in its totality. McFarland famously cheated investors out of approximately $24 million, and a ticket vendor out of about $2 million.
McFarland’s financial victims will receive a percentage of the clothing sales, “based on their respective losses,” prosecutors said. “Our objective always is to get the funds back to the victims as fast as we can in cases where there are victims,” USMS Marshals added.
The USMS will announce a formal date for the online auction at a later time.
H/T: Vulture
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