Promoter Of Botched Fyre Festival Sentenced To 6 Years In Prison

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The promoter behind the Fyre Festival, a supposedly elite concert event in the Bahamas that fizzled in a wave of cancellations and disorganization, has been sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Billy McFarland was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

The disastrous festival in 2017 left hundreds of ticket buyers stranded on an island.

Tickets to Fyre Fest cost between $1,000 and $125,000 for luxury group packages. It was supposed to have run in two parts last year: April 28-30 and May 5-7, on the private Fyre Cay in the Grand Bahamas Exuma Island chain. Performers were to include Blink-182, Migos, Daniel Cowel, Major Lazer and Disclosure.

McFarland pleaded guilty earlier this year to fraud charges.

Vlogger Austin Mills, a Los Angeles native who attended the Fyre Festival, told CBS2 News last year that he was stranded for hours and did not sleep for days. He filmed the devastation after arriving in the Bahamas.

"As soon as we drove in, all the tents were a mess and not set up yet and immediately people were worried," Mills said.

Mills said it was a nightmare. There was no electricity, FEMA tents were set up and people were locked in their rooms for hours without food or water.

"Not being able to leave another country and get back into the United States was pretty scary," Mills said.