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The Fyre Festival Failure.

Anglia Ruskin University: London Campus

Customer Service Management for Hospitality and Tourism
Student ID 1630589/2
Student Attendance ID 313479
08.11.19

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Table of contents:
Executive Summary

Task One

Overview

Profile of a Fyre Festival Customer

Fyre Festival Consumer Trends

Fyre Festival Customer Expectation

Task Two

The Fyre Festival Customer Journey

Physical Evidence

On Stage Interaction

Backstage interaction

Support Processes

Service Blueprint

Service Failure and Recommendations

Conclusion

Executive Summary
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The Fyre Festival is a failed musical festival which was founded by Billy McFarland in
cooperation with the rapper Ja Rule. It meant to take place on the Bahamas Island, the Pablo’s
Escobar residence, and it was promised to be the Coachella of decade, the best one with the
luxury facilities on the island but in fact it turned to the right opposite of this.

Task one:
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1. Overview.

The Fyre Festival took place in Bahamas in April 2017. It was supposed to be the best
festival of the decade but unfortunately, was the opposite. The Festival, being founded by
Billy McFarland with the cooperation of the rapper Ja Rule, has the purpose of a luxury
experience of an music festival on superior level of services, in Bahamas, on the island owed
by the Pablo Escobar, but in fact was failing to provide the basic needs of water, food and
living on the island. In order to get a good promotion, the founder has involved 10 top models
such as Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin in a promotional video which was
showing a paradise on the island where you can get "the best in food, art, music and
adventure" Baggs, (2019).

The price for this feast was absurdly expensive. The thicket price started from $1,500
which is £1,200, for the most basic level of the living there which includes the flights from
Miami to the Fyre Festival island. As well, they assumed to provide “The Lodge” at a cost of
$8,999, which is around £7,000. The most expensive ticket cost $25,000, equal to £19,000,
but this could be booked only for the groups of 10, so in total they accumulated $250.000 just
from this expensively tickets Olivia Blair (2019). But the most absurd thing is that on the
island was none of this villas that they sold, instead, all the attendees found just some tents,
which was wet because on the previous day raining. By promising fancy meals and charter
planes, the guests of the Fyre Festival was getting cheese sandwiches and regular planes on
which windows could be easily polled out as the Netflix “Fyre: The greatest party that never
happened” (2019) showed.

In the end of this story, Billy McFarland was condemned to 6 years of prison and
ordered to relinquish $26 million, and in 2018 he was arrested for the selling of fake tickets
by the NYC VIP company. Ja Rule and McFarland have no right to visit Bahamas for the
whole lifetime. The Fyre Festival was supposed to be an amazing luxury experience of the
music, art, accommodation and food, which didn’t have a chance to happen.

2. Profile of a Fyre Festival Customer.

According to the Netflix documentary (2019), around 5,000 of people bought their
tickets within the first 24 hours of the promotional video landing. In order to identify the
certain group of people which was involved in the festival we need to have a look on the
market segmentation. By Jonathan Law and John Smullen (2008), the market segmentation is
“a theory that explains the yield curve in terms of different levels of demand for different
maturities”. In my opinion the main type of customer which was engaged in the Fyre Festival are
middle-aged people. The demographic profile says that the majority was composed by
American people with the age between 26-34, both female and male was evolved. As the
ticket prices was very high, the peoples income was supposed to be high as well, so no chance
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for the no working people to get there. An active lifestyle, ambitious personality and positive
attitude, was the criteria that describe the potential profile of a Fyre Festival customer. Also,
the social media influencers had a crucial involvement in the festival. Nowadays, everyone is spending
a lot of time on social media, and the Fyre team took the possibility to influence other people to buy
the ticket by manipulating with influencers, especially instagrammers. This means that they was one of
the main market segmentation that the team wanted to achieve.

3. Fyre Festival Consumer Trends.

The Fyre Festival took its popularity because it combined a sum of consumer trends
that stimulated the people to buy the tickets. The consumer trends are “habits or behaviours,
currently prevalent among consumers of goods or services. Consumer trends track more than
simply what people buy and how much they spend. Data collected on trends may also include
information such as how consumers use a product and how they communicate about a brand
with their social network” by the business dictionary. Despite cultural differences, there are
some general trends that affect the industry worldwide. Correspondingly, the Fyre Festival
followed some global trends in order to awake an interest from the customers. The main trend
that the Fyre team tried to use was evolvement of the social media influencers in the
marketing. To generate interest in the festival and boost ticket sales, Fyre co-founders Billy
McFarland and Ja Rule launched a social media campaign in which 63 celebrity endorsers and
influencers simultaneously posted an orange graphic to their Instagram feeds with the hashtag
#FyreFest. Te meaning of this trend is that the influencers and celebrities are manipulating the
customer minds and making this event to be discussed. Models and Instagram influencers like
Emily Ratajkovski, Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, elaborated a very high demand on a fake
music festival.

4. Fyre Festival Customer Expectations.

The Fyre Festival, bring promoted as a luxury destination of the music and art
environment, gives its customer same level of the expectation. All the customers assumed to
have rich weekend adventure, full of decent food service by celebrity chefs, good music all
the time, private Villas, and luxury tours with the private plane, because they all spend a lot of
money for that as well. But the reality was much rough. Beach party changed for looking for a
bed to sleep, private charter plane for a very low economy plane, and the luxury food for the
cheese sandwich with the salad (figure1, by Anna Conrad 2018 ).

Figure 1. Customer expectation vs reality.

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Task 2:

1. Fyre Festival Customer Journey.

Customer Journey is one of the most important tool which is helping to see where
customers interact with the organisation and focuses the organisation on particular customer
interest. According to Ford, R. and Heaton, (2010) “Outstanding tourism and hospitality
organisations will use blueprints or journey plans to plan the service experience and ensure
that every detail of the entire service experience is understood, tasted and measured” with
other words, customer journey map shows the gaps between the desired customer experience
and then one actually received. The Fyre Festival customer journey map could help the
founders to identify their issue and the point where everything started to collapse.

Figure 2. Customer Journey on the Fyre Festival.

Flying to Arrieved Having Flyed

Customer Book the
Awarness the to the difficuties back
Journey ticket
festival festival home

This customer journey map is showing how a potential middle age person could find
out about the festival and all the next steps. By scrolling the Instagram the person could see
the Fyre Festival advertising and get interested in it. The promotional video was posted in
December 2016. The next step could be the booking of the ticket. By discussing with friends
or with the influencers, the customer took the decision to attend this amazing festival and
booked the tickets paying for it at least £1,200. The third step was basically flying to the
festival. After a long time of waiting and longtime of emails received, with all the awareness
and red flags, the customer took the flight from Miami to Bahamas. Once again, instead of the
private charter plains the customer got a low cost plain, with all other passengers flying to
Bahamas. Another step of the customer journey is arriving on the island. By landing, the
customer was expecting to see nice cars to rent in order to get to the festival, the Villas for
what the customer paid, and a nice ambiance around with music and fun, which actually did
not meant to happen. All this steps provided above, are creating the next step, having
difficulties with everything: no electricity, because of this, the music was stopping at some
periods, no food that they was promised they will get, no villas, just some tents instead. The
customers starts to find the solution, and the way of handling all the difficulties, start to think
about the toilets, not about the models. And because all this situation couldn’t be solved in
one day, the Fyre Festival has been canceled, and all the customers start to pack back to
home, which created the last step of the customer journey.

A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationship between different

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services components that are directly tied to the touchpoints in a specific customer journey.
Hudson and Hudson (2013), said that “a service blueprint shares the understanding of the
service process while team working”. It is possible to get a multiple blueprint for the same
service if there are several different scenarios that it can accommodate. The blueprint service
can be exanimated as part two of the customer journey.

2. Physical Evidence.

The physical evidence is a basic element of the marketing mix. According to Booms, B.
and Bitner, M. (1981), “the environment in which the service is delivered and where the firm
and customer interact, and any tangible components that facilitate performance or
communication of the service”. This means that the physical environment is actually the place
or location where the customer and employee contacted each other. This could be a shop, a
web site, social media, advertising and other points of get in touch.

Figure 3. Physical evidence.

Physical Promotio Transport Consierge Villas and Transport

Web site
Evidence nal Video ation desk restaurant ation
For the Fyre Festival, the physical evidence started with the promotional video which
awarded the customer through the social media. The next evidence was the web site from
where the customer booked the fly. After the booking, when the crucial day started, the
transportation became the third physical environment. Both plain and bus, which was
transporting the customer from the airport to the Coachella was an evidence for the customer
and a way to communicate. The concierge desk and later on, the track from where the
employee was advising people to “grab a tent” was physical evidence too. When people
started to find out about the non-existing villas and the food that they have been given, the
music which was interrupting sometimes because of the lack of electricity, the problems and
difficulties appeared straight away and the physical evidence for that was the actual tents and
restaurant provided. The final evidence was again the transportation which helped people to
escape from the survival.

3. On Stage Interactions.

As stated by Gibbons (2019), the on stage interactions are the actual “actions that occur
directly in view of the customer. These actions can be human-to-human or human-to-
computer actions” Human-to-human actions are steps and activities when the customer and

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employee are getting in contact. Human-to-computer actions are actually developed in a self-
service method, getting the service from the machine. This means online and offline
interaction with the service providers. The Fyre Festival onstage interactions was very on the
surface because this are the thigs that actually happened with the customers. The interaction
started when the potential customer booked a ticket to the festival. The on stage interaction
here, was an online one, by taking the payment and allocating the ticket. The next on stage
interaction was human-to-human one, the actual fly to the island, interacting with the staff
which was provided them with the transportation. The next two interactions was human-to-
human as well, by arriving on the island, customers was getting in touch with the concierge,
trying to get the accommodation, next when all the problems came to lights people was
getting engaged with the less staff that was there in order to get a solution. Finally, after a
long time, when the Coachella has been cancelled, and people was trying to get back home,
here they meet another human-to-human interaction again with the transport staff.

4. Back Stage Interactions.

The back stage interactions are “steps and activities that occur behind the scenes to
support onstage happenings. These actions could be performed by a backstage employee (e.g.,
a cook in the kitchen) or by a frontstage employee who does something not visible to the
customer (e.g., a waiter entering an order into the kitchen display system)” Gibbons (2017).
This interactions are happened without the customer. The customer itself con not see what is
happening inside the serving process. The back stage interaction on the Fyre Festival mostly
was “ running out of money”, and this is the main issue why the festival collapsed. The first
backstage interaction started when the customer get interested about the greatest festival of
the decade, the interaction here was creating the promotional and advertising video. The
second backstage interaction was when people booked the tickets, the interaction being as
booking the island. The next backstage interaction was looking for funds and running out of
money, same as not booking private planes for the transportation. When customers arrived,
the festival was still trying to set on, this being a backstage interaction as well. When the
customers started to get in touch with the problems, the backstage interaction seemed like
didn’t happened at all, because this problems have never been solved. and the last backstage
interaction was getting the planes ready in order to transport people back home. In my opinion
the Fyre backstage interactions did no work at all, because they are meant to be the bridge
between customer and the employee that is helping to improve the service, but as we can see
now, this things ever happened.

5. Support Processes.

The supporting process is performed to maintain integrity of the product or service

developed by “primary processes” as well as it ensures that products and processes comply
with predefined provisions and plans. Supporting processes accompany the
“primary processes”, which do not typically result in final products of the organization, but
rather indirectly contributes to the value added. The support system of any service works as

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internal or additional support for the services. In order to apply this concept for the Fyre
Festival, we need to understand that the music was the main concept of it, but the food and the
water, transportation, influencers, this all was an supporting process which meant to develop
the main conception. Fistly, posting the promotional video on the Instagram, YouTube,
Facebook and other social media, was the first supporting process for the festival. The second
one was sending the confirmation of the ticket bought, and the rest of the supporting process
was “running out of money” which actually doesn’t sounds like a supporting process but more
as a unsporting process.

6. Service Blueprint.

Figure 4. The blueprint.

Takig the
Onstage Check in to the Packing people Check in to the
paymant and
Interactions flight with alcohol flight
alocate the ticket.

Backstage Making the Booking the Not booking Setting on Running out
Interaction video island plane the event of money

Supporting Posting on Sending a Running out of

Process Instagram confirmation money

7. Service Failure and Recommendations.

As first, the Fyre Festival was planned to be a luxury location with a very high standard
to go, but because of the bad management all ruined and al the service failed. In my opinion
the first service failure was the accommodation. The Fyre managers was promising the private
villas and a luxury accommodation for the different prices but anyway all high, and nothing of

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that actually became true. The selling of the tickets before to build all the promises is a huge
mistake that can be ever done. Secondly, the transportation advertising of a charter planes, but
in fact was the regular plains from the low economy sector. Using the busses instead of
limousines which they promised in order to take people from the airport, didn’t come true as
well. Third is the overbooking. The island was not prepared at all for all the accommodation
that they actually promised, so the overcrowded island was supposed to fit in the small tents.
Al this failure had one and most important consequence, the festival has been canceled and
the customers get the worst experience ever. McFarland didn’t enjoy the consequences oh the
festival neither, he was condemned for 6 years in prison and he failed to repay $100 million
back to the customers and the works which done a huge job there and still did not get
remunerated.

Conclusion:
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The most waited Fyre Festival, became the most hated one. Nowadays, the social media
is having a huge impact on our life, and the decision to involve the influencers in the
promoting the Festival was a great one because it really helped, but unfortunately the
following decisions didn’t have that success. I think that the company could use the blueprint
and customer journey in order to find out the straightness and weaknesses of the plan that they
are doing and this could improve the situation. The wrong made decisions was decisive for
the future of the Fyre Festival.

Reference List:
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-Anna Conrad (2018). Inside the cancelled Fyre festival disaster: “People were crying on the
beach”. [online] https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/fyre-festival-instagram-bahamas-ja-
rule-models

- Booms, B. and Bitner, M. (1981). Marketing Strategies and Organizational Structures for

Service Firms Marketing of Services. Chicago: American Marketing Association.

- Business Dictionary [online] http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consumer-

trends.html

- Chris Smith (2019). Fyre: The greatest party that never happened. [online] Netflix

- Ford, R. and Heaton, C.P. (2010). Managing the Guest Experience in Hospitality. Delmar
Cengage Learning.

- Gibbons, S. (2019). Service Blueprints: Definition. [online] Nielsen Norman Group.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/service-blueprints-definition/

- Hudson, S. and Hudson, L., 2017. Customer Service for Hospitality and Tourism.
Oxfordshire: Goodfellow Publishers Ltd.

- Jonathan Law and John Smullen (2008). A Dictionary of Finance and Banking. Oxfordshire:
Oxford University Press

- Michael Baggs, (2019). Fyre Festival. Inside the world’s biggest festival flap. [online] BBC
News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-46904445

- Olivia Blair (2019) Fyre Festival documentary: 9 questions we still need answered.[online]
Cosmopolitan https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a25986366/fyre-festival-
documentary-netflix-questions-answers/

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