Who Is Marc Weinstein? Details About The Fyre Festival Music Consultant
The guests weren't the only ones trapped into the scheme.
instagram The Fyre Festival has left a (tainted) legacy on music festivals that sets it apart from the likes of Coachella, Lollapalooza, and others. After social media pumped hype into the destination event set in the Bahamas in 2017, it exploded. Guests arrived to a site the opposite of what the thousands of dollars they’d dropped on the “biggest event of the decade” promised to be.
Billy McFarland, the founder of the festival, has crashed and burned: he is in prison for fraud.
McFarland and Ja Rule — a rapper who created early buzz for the event — are not the only two involved in the debacle. The Netflix and Hulu documentaries, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Fyre Fraud, respectively, also shed light on others involved in the scheme. Turns out, the staff was duped as well.
Marc Weinstein was one member of the staff interviewed for the Netflix documentary. Unlike McFarland, who is forever tied to the Fyre failure, Weinstein has a life and career outside of the festival. Here's what we know:
1. Fyre Fest wasn't his first festival.
Weinstein was contracted by Billy McFarland for the project. He works at Wave Financial, which “offers early-stage investment, asset management, treasury management and strategy consulting to further the growth of the crypto projects in the blockchain ecosystem”, according to its website. Weinstein has been behind-the-scenes at festivals since 2012, so he was qualified for the position. His responsibility for Fyre was housing. Specifically for staff, influencers and VIPs.
At first, Weinstein recalled thinking it would be fun, but as the 400 people he was told he’d have to house increased to 1,450, and the three-week timeline shrank, the job wasn’t so ideal anymore.
2. He’s a yoga enthusiast.
One of Weinstein’s clear passions is yoga. He is a yoga instructor; his Instagram is littered with peaceful photos and poses. He subscribes to its spiritual, meditative practices as well.
One of Weinstein’s other supposed responsibilities at the festival was to teach classes for guests.
3. He blogs on Medium.
Weinstein has eight posts on his blog from 2016 to 2018. He describes himself as an “Investor, Advisor, Entrepreneur, certified yoga instructor, and lifelong student." His articles encapsulate all of his identities, spanning from “Why we MUST CREATE,” to “2018: The Year of the Mega Cap ICO?”
On Aug. 4, 2017, Weinstein posted “Lesson from the Fyre: What I learned Working on the Disastrous Fyre Festival.” He breaks down the primary role of social media in the failure. Staff and influencers projected images hyping up the event. “My [Instagram] account was full of pictures of crystal clear waters, beach patios, and sunsets; even though I spent most of my days in front of a computer crunching numbers,” he says in the post. “It was one of the most stressful times of my life and yet, judging by my posts, my life seemed exotic and tranquil.”
He thinks we should all apply an honest policy to the way we post online. “If we apply this honesty to our own social media feeds, we could start building a foundation of truth...if we embrace reality, at the very least it won’t be disastrous when people discover that we aren’t what we seem.”
4. He is contributing to reparations for the festival.
Weinstein describes himself in his Twitter bio as “community conscious.” In his Instagram bio, he has provided a link to the GoFundMe page for Maryann Rolle, a Bahamian restauranteur who lost tens of thousands of dollars in investments in the festival. The campaign for the Fyre Fest Fiasco raised over $180,000 in 10 days.
Ja Rule apologized to Rolle three days after the Netflix documentary premiered.
Weinstein also posted about her fundraising efforts.
Alison Cerri is a writer covering entertainment, news and lifestyle topics. She is a senior at Susquehanna University studying publishing and editing.