File-sharing service LimeWire has acquired the infamous Fyre Festival brand for $245,000, the company announced Tuesday, promising to revive the disaster-plagued name with “real experiences” and transparency.
The purchase unites two companies with troubled digital histories, as LimeWire seeks to rehabilitate both its own legacy and that of the failed 2017 luxury music festival that became a symbol of influencer marketing gone wrong.
“We’re not bringing the festival back — we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life,” said Julian Zehetmayr, CEO of LimeWire. “This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”
LimeWire, which dominated music file-sharing in the 2000s before being shut down for copyright violations in 2010, relaunched in 2022 as an NFT marketplace and digital content platform. The company won the Fyre brand rights through a competitive eBay auction that attracted 175 bids, beating out Ryan Reynolds’ creative agency, Maximum Effort.
Reynolds, whose agency has previously referenced Fyre Festival memes in advertising campaigns, congratulated LimeWire on the acquisition. “I look forward to attending their first event, but will be bringing my own palette of water,” he said in a statement.
The original Fyre Festival, organized by convicted fraudster Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, promised a luxury experience in the Bahamas but devolved into chaos when attendees arrived to find inadequate food, shelter, and infrastructure. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for wire fraud.
Related: Fyre Festival 2: Redemption or Disaster?
Despite his 2022 release from prison, McFarland still owes about $26 million in restitution to victims of the original festival, having paid only $28,000, according to court documents from 2023.
LimeWire plans to unveil a “reimagined vision for Fyre” in the coming months that will expand “beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise,” according to the company’s press release. The acquisition includes all trademarks, intellectual property, website domain, and social media channels.
“Fyre became a symbol of everything that can go wrong. Now it’s our chance to show what happens when you pair cultural relevance with real execution,” said Marcus Feistl, LimeWire’s chief operating officer.
The company has already begun selling Fyre-branded merchandise, including t-shirts for $50 and hoodies for $85, and opened a waitlist for future updates at the revived Fyre Festival website.
Read: Fyre Festival 2 Postponed (Again) Indefinitely, Ticket Holders Receive Refunds
McFarland, who had announced plans for a second Fyre Festival earlier this year before putting the brand up for sale, expressed support for the acquisition. “With Limewire at the helm of FYRE Festival, there’s an incredible future for the brand,” he said.
No specific plans for events have been announced, but LimeWire said that the revival will be “bold, self-aware, and impossible to ignore.”
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