The return of the infamous Fyre Festival is definitely happening, the co-founder has said, five years after what was meant to be a luxury event in an idyllic setting turned into a nightmare for ticketholders.

Billy McFarland, who spent almost four years behind bars over the catastrophic event, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “Fyre II has to work.”

Ticketholders for the 2017 flopped event had spent up to £9,200 per head on what had been billed as an ultra-luxury festival promising stellar food and music on a Caribbean island.

Fyre Festival customers had been promised white sand, luxury accommodation and first-class food as supermodels like Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski featured in promotional campaigns (although they later distanced themselves from the spectacle).

But when ticketholders arrived they were instead faced with a rain-sodden “disaster tent city” which ended up becoming the focus of the 2019 Netflix documentary film FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened.

Guests branded it “a post-apocalyptic nightmare” and images of a sad-looking cheese sandwich provided for dinner went viral.

And despite the event seeing more than $26m (£20m) in losses after it was cancelled due to inadequate accommodation, food and water, McFarland has now said a sequel will definitely be going ahead.

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McFarland, who was released from jail in 2022, told the Wall Street Journal he knows the stakes are high.

He acknowledged that if he fails, “it’s going to be very hard to get other opportunities, whether that’s a marketing job, a podcast appearance, a TV show or a relationship”.

“People are going to be hard-pressed to trust me if I put it all on the line and fail at it twice,” he added.

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But envisioning Fyre II, which is based on a 50-page plan he came up with while in jail, McFarland said: “Karate Combat on the beach, I think that would be amazing.

“Having some extreme sports, having some comedy and some fashion.”

He first announced his intentions for Fyre II in a YouTube video in August last year in which he appeared dressed in a white spa dressing gown.

Read more: Fyre Festival: What happened in 2017

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While details on the actual organisation of the event were scarce, he said that after considering holding the festival in the Middle East or South America, he’d decided to bring it “back to the Caribbean”.

A year on, he was still unable to say “where, when and how” the festival would take place, the Journal reports.

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