Do Go On - 291 - Fyre Festival

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Fyre Festival - an immersive music festival, unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. Fly to the beautiful Bahamas and enjoy pure luxury at this incredibly cool and expensive festival, which is definitely not a scam.For tickets to Matt's shows in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne: https://www.mattstewartcomedy.com/ Matt’s New Interview Show: ‘Matt Your Heroes’: https://youtu.be/VVsVGkzVNZQ Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Buy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 12 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoon Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://fortune.com/2017/08/30/fyre-festival-billy-mcfarland-magnises/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festivalhttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56777716

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hey everyone, Matt here. Just before we start this episode, I just want to tell you I've got some live stand-up shows coming up in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

The Melbourne one is going to be a live taping. So if you're overseas, hopefully it'll be something you can see down the track. But if you're in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, I'd love you to come along. So I've got the Chippo Hotel at 7pm on the 8th of June in Sydney, then 7pm on the 9th of June. June at Kingley's Throne, my favourite pub in maybe the world, certainly in Brisbane, and then June 17th at 6.30pm at Stupid Old Studios in Brunswick, which is, you know, my favourite place to be. So, yeah, hopefully you can come along if you're in or near one of these cities. It would be awesome to see you there. All venues are quite smallish, so I'm

hoping that we'll be able to pack them all out. And yeah, yeah, so if you can, I think you're probably want to get under the tickets pretty quick. And if you want, use the discount code, do go on, or one word, for a sweet little discount. So, yeah, if you want more details, go to Matt Stewartcom. Matt Stewartcomedy.com. Anyway, cheers. Now on with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On.

My name is Dave Warnagie, and as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins, and you better believe it, Matt Stewart as well. I believe it, and I'm Jess Perkins. Oh, and I believe it And I'm Matt Stewart That's how he knows Matt Stewart is here Yeah, the catchphrases we do every episode All of them

I believe it I'm Matt Stewart I just accidentally hit my chair And I went down very quickly What fun What fun we have Yeah That's right, we've got chairs that go down here

Mine only goes up Stupidel Studios is pretty fancy Dave, how does this show work again? Well, all we did is we take it in terms a report on a topic often suggested by a listener. And whoever's been in charge of the report goes away. Yeah, that's right. Whoever's been a good girl or top dog.

Wow, they're quite different. Take your pick. You've got two options. We go away research's topic. Bring it back to the other two who have no idea what the report is even about. Jess, it's your turn to be good girl slash top dog. I choose top dog. Nice.

And the top dog always starts with a question. Which event, named after the process of combustion or burning, occurred in April 2017. Fire Festival. Yes! Well done. That's why you're on the top of the leaderboard. Because I was just thinking, carburetor. Anyway.

Yeah, you're too smart for your own good, mate. Fire. I'm like a caveman. Hot fire. Who knows about fire. Burning fire. Hot. Yes, it is Fire Festival.

Fire Festival. I'm very excited about this. I don't know too much about it. I never watched that documentary that was all the rage. I watched one of them. There were two. I watched the first one that came out, not the second one. One on Netflix and one that was on like Hulu.

I'm not sure where that would be available in Australia. I re-watched the Netflix one. That's great that you didn't watch it because a lot of this will be new information. I love that. I don't have known really nothing about it except I've seen a photo of a shit-looking sandwich. Exactly right. But it also looked fine. We've got different standards on this podcast.

I don't mind a cheese and salad sandwich. Yeah. But that looked shit. Oh, did it? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's no surprise that this has been suggested by a lot of people. Around the time, obviously, that the documentaries came out. It's been suggested by Jeff Wise, Roo Kadeer, Rory Evans, James Bailey,

Zachary Lindrosse, Keith Ross, Jack Goods, Christina Nitsky, Rory Evans, Trent, Mandy, Alex Waite, Dominic and Lauren. So a bunch of different people. Wow, thank you so much. But also, I think it was only a couple off being in Blocktoberfest last year. It was quite popular in that vote as well. Well, it absolutely wiped the floor with this vote. I put up three topics.

I did a keyword search in Jack the Hat, McVitty, for Funny. And I chose three topics where people are described it as a funny story. I was like, I feel like doing something kind of light, you know? Yeah. And this one, like, had twice the votes. One of the topics didn't get a single vote. No. And then this one, I believe, last time I checked, had about 65% of the vote.

It's the one that didn't get anything. That is a real indictment. Yeah. Can you name and shame? Mariah Carey. What? No one wanted to hear about Mariah. No one wanted to hear about Mariah.

Yep. Bloody hell. They wanted to hear about fire. Unbelievable. Mariah Carey, very funny. Very funny. No wonder she was the keyword. A notoriously funny person.

Just always up to funny antics. Yeah. We didn't get to hear about it. Not a single vote. Not one. That's wild. Yeah. So anyway, Dave, I guess this will mostly be for you.

Appreciate that. I feel like it's been long enough since it happened that if people did watch the doco that came out a couple of years ago, maybe it's not quite fresh. I definitely re-watching it. I was like, oh, I forgot about that. Right. Yeah, I watched it at the time. Yeah. Got pretty vague memories. Blink 182 were involved, I think. Great. Love them.

And, yeah. Which I think Americans say 182. 182. Which I think would probably be correct if they are an American band. Yeah. So that I'm not speaking. About how different we are. It was crazy. Wow. Was that in the top ten?

Because they were really... They are always... Clutching at straws there. Yeah, they always are. and I love them for it. You know, their album, this was after I was sort of listening to them anyway, but they had an album, maybe in your era, Dave, take off your pants and jacket.

Have the rock show on it. I only got the pun or the joke there when someone tweeted, I only just got the joke of take off your pants and jacket. I'm like, the joke in take off your pants and jacket. It's a fashion, fashion-related joke. Yeah. Because you're getting naked. I never, yeah, never, I assume I'm not wearing clothes underneath, so I didn't get it.

What are you, like, you would never wear just a jacket, so what are you left standing there in a t-shirt? Exactly. Is that the joke? That's funny. The mental image of somebody taking off their pants, but still being there in like shirt and blazer, very funny. And shoes, that's funny. That's fun. They never mentioned the shoes. So it is a good joke.

It's a good joke. It's a good joke. Um, okay, so, Fire Festival. It all started with a man boy named Billy McFarland. Okay, man boy Man boy I sort of feel like Billy's

I was going to say Billy's really only acceptable as a child but Billy Connolly really makes it work you know so no judgment You don't like Billy

Apart from that I love Billy Zane Oh okay Take it back Yeah What about Billy Gibbons Billy Piper

Yeah Yeah what about Yeah Billy Piper She makes it work I love Billy for a girl Love it Anyway

Is he sure for something? Anna Billy Anna Billy Drop the Anna. It's Billy. I'm going to Billy. Yep. So Billy McFarland grew up in New Jersey

and told the New York Times that at age 13, he founded an online outsourcing startup that matched clients with web designers. So from a young age, he's like, oh, where are the gaps in the market? Love that. Good for him. I'm a tech genius. He's a real man boy.

He's a real man boy. After graduating high school, he attended Bucknell University to study computer engineering, but dropped out in May of his freshman year. That's the one before sophomore, Matt. Freshman. To found...

And we, I mean, we found out for people who didn't hear the Oprah episode that some people do say sophomore. Sophomore. I'm one of those people. You say, freshman. To act as CEO for the short-lived online advertising platform, Spling.

That's a fun word. Spling! It's like a spicy fling. Put together. Spling. Spling. Not one of those dull flings that you're your seven days. Mud is so boring.

Please take me back to my normal life. This is so dull. This fling, ugh. My goodness. Yon. This is a boring fling. A bling. You go on that to make your wife or husband seem more interesting by comparison.

A boring fling would be a boring. Oh, a boring. You go on a boring and then you come back and go, I did not realize how good I had it. Yes. That's great. So he's created Spling. TechCrunch, an online newspaper focusing on tech companies,

described Spling as a content sharing network and criticised its similarity to other services which already existed at the time. Oh no. In August of 2013, 22-year-old McFarland with the help of $1.5 million of investor funding launched Magnesis. I love that.

That's all it takes, Matt. All you need is $1.5 million. a small amount to get going. Self-starter. Love that. Yeah. What's that Simpson's quote? Something like he saw an already overcrowded mark and said,

Me too. Well, Magnesis is different. Magnesis was a card-based membership club targeted to millennials. Card-based? Card-based. It was essentially just about status. The card was widely compared to an American. Express Black Card.

Like the Black Card and Magnesus Card was black, made of metal, and promised exclusive member perks. However, unlike an Amex, magnesium cards wasn't, it's not a real charge card. Basically, each card copied the MagSstrip information from a customer's existing bank card from Wells Fargo or Bank of America. And then it could be used as a substitute. It's essentially an accessory. Right.

It's still linked to your same. it's just a replacement of your A&Z card, but now you've got this heavy metal thing that makes you look like you are wealthy. That seems clever. You're sort of playing on people's vanity. Yeah. It feels like the kind of thing that could maybe take off.

Yeah. Oh, you just use your plastic card. That's cute. I'll chuck mine on my Moringo. Moringo. Working in retail where people would hand over their black cards. Honestly, it was. just a pain in the ass to swipe it through the machine.

They were too thick. And I was also like, I don't care. You're buying undies. I don't care. Go away. Yeah, someone recently gave me their card to buy them something. I was getting lunch at work or something and they had an American Express and I couldn't believe how thick and heavy it was.

It'd be annoying to sit on. This is someone from on air, I'm guessing, one of the on air talents. Oh yeah, it's got to be. No. What? How much are they paying you there? Hey, it's all about the status. Dave, are you rich?

No. Okay, good to know. He answered very quickly, so I'm going to, I agree. Check my card. My card is full of plastic. So yeah, you just looked wealthy and cool if you had one. By December the company had about 500 members. Okay, that's pretty good, right?

It's not bad. 500 dumb people. If they all tell two of their dumb friends, you tell four of their dumb friends. It spreads. There's a pretty good article on fortune.com about it, and it says, For $250 per year, members would gain entry to exclusive celebrity events, a concierge service to score hard-to-get concert tickets and restaurant reservations, and access to a swanky shared hangout pad.

There's a clip of it in the documentary, and it looks like an apartment. Nice. Not a particularly amazing one, just an apartment. And people are just sort of sitting around. It's pretty cool. But it's exclusive. Hang out at the club. They'd also get to meet up with other wealthy young folk who like to party, entrepreneurs, business people and entertainers.

It was also, guys, a networking opportunity. Right. Okay, $250 a year, oh, a small price to pay. That's nothing. For the networking. Yeah, I mean, that isn't that expensive. Yeah. You can rent out an apartment for the year.

I'd bring a little mattress, set it up, the corner is move in, but hangout pad. Oh, okay. Yeah, I live here now. I'm a 250. I thought you were setting up your own clubhouse and you were putting a mattress in the corner and I was like, what's that for? I live here now.

What are you doing? What are you doing? Now I understand. Can you guys keep it down? I'm trying to get a bit of shut up here. The exclusive pads. Stop networking over there. I'm nap working.

It's 3 a.m. Fuck off. In 2014, Magnususus told the press it had about 1,200 members in September. In September of 2016, McFarlane said he had 30,000 cardholders. Oh, the way that Jess is saying said makes me think they might be full of sheet. And cardholder instead of the word member. Like, has he given out some free ones here? What's going on?

30,000. Two months later at a conference in Portugal, he claimed 100,000 customers. Wow. One million. Everyone on earth has a card. Everyone. Prove me wrong. It's that exclusive.

I don't have a card. Check your pocket. I do have a card. He's also a magician. Yeah, he's got a... What is it, slide of hand? Is that what it's called? Slight of hand.

I said slight. I said slight. Slight of hand. But he slides. He's a slide of hand. He slides into your pocket. A card. And your heart.

Slide on in. He's saying 100,000. 100,000. Quite a significant growth in a couple of months. 100,000 times 500. Dave, you know maths. What's the 500? That's 500.

Oh, 250, sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll wait. I thought it's... would have been easy for a math and magician like him. Is it 25 million? 100,000? I have no idea.

Yeah, probably. It would start with 25, whatever it is. Yeah. There'd be a 2 and a 5 at the top. Well, it's just start moving on while I get the calculator out to the job check myself. They'll point out the abacus. I reckon if he's wrong in a second we're going to hear, fuck! Oh my God.

It's not a million, is it? Is it a million? Two and a half million. Two and a half million. Yes, that makes more sense. Two and a half million. No, it is 20. Hold on.

I've done the calculation wrong. It's $25 million. I was right. Sorry. Embarrassingly, I typed in the wrong numbers. So I was wrong. Just with my finkies. So if this is true.

The business is doing quite well, if that is true. Yeah, if that is true. The business is doing quite well if that is true. Great. And I assume it is. Why would Billy Zane lie? Yeah, that's right. Also from fortune.com.

Early on, home base for Magnesis was a townhouse in Manhattan's West Village, which was used to host parties and dinners for members. The well-appointed building was a co-working space by day, with tables to spread out laptops and papers, and a fancy frat house by night, replete with booze and carozing. Boos and caroos? Oh, my goodness.

The big booze and carouse. I didn't recognize that word for some reason. Is it like an open bar in here? You could really get good value for your 2045. You're sleeping there, you're drinking in. eating your meals there? Yeah, but you have to hang out with people who have joined to this club. That's a large price to pay.

Yeah, I don't know if I'd be up for it. McFarland conducted business meetings at the location and he even made all the magnesium medal cards on site. Did it himself. He's made a hundred thousand, he reckoned. Apparently, the landlord wasn't pleased. In a $100,000 lawsuit filed in 2015, the owner alleged that McFarland used a residential space to conduct commercial business, leaving

the building trashed. McFarland damaged and destroyed several windows and virtually all the kitchen appliances and left the townhouse in a state of total disrepair, rubble and disarray according to court papers. McFarland largely denied the main allegations in court filings. The case was settled in January of 2016. Magnusus subsequently decamped for a more traditional office further up town in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood. Right. Can you still drink and sleep there? I mean, you can do whatever you want in an office. I don't think they have HR. Yeah, thank you probably can. Great, I'll just take that complaint and file it here, walks over to the toilet and flushes it.

I just kind of, yeah, it's crazy that he's like in his early 20s and renting out this swanky apartment to run a business out of, but also partying out of it and trashing it. Sounds like he was just looking for people to help him pay his rent. Yeah, that's what he was. I think he was sleeping in another room there, right? Surely. They say you just film it all and you'd be a YouTube or TikTok superstar. My God, yeah. They rent those mansions and trash them.

You know how they do that, TikTok stars? Dave, we don't understand TikTok. What's more YouTube? Way too old for TikTok. It's a hard thing to accept, but you've got to let it go. Speak for yourselves. I'm ticking, I'm talking to the dad. You're influencing over there.

Oh, yeah. I know what you're like. Very influential man. Around the same time in 2016, Billy and rapper Jarl Rule co-founded Fire Media Incorporated. Love that. Is he just run into Jarl Rule on the streets or?

Well, fire media all came about because through Magnesis, Billy would throw parties and events and one time he tried to book Jarl rule. And it proved to be very difficult. Wow. Yeah, he got onto this guy on Instagram paid him

500 bucks then he's that guy sent him to a different guy who wanted a thousand dollars and then he in the end didn't even get through to bloody jar rule

and it's hard to book jar rule for a gig but very easy to start a company with it he'll say yes to that yeah does he just hate performing no he loves it

no so what they were coming up with with fire media was a talent booking process like a service Like an Uber for booking. Right.

Hey, Jarl. It was really hard to contact you. We should create a thing where it's easier for me to contact you. And Jail Rule's like, not just me, how about all my friends as well? Yes. And Billy's like, I mostly just want to get a beer with you. Yeah. Jail.

But I guess if you want to bring some friends, I'm not going to say, no, I'm not rude. Do you call him Jha? Jarl rude. Yes, genuinely, yes. Really? Jarr. Everyone just calls him Jha. Love that a lot.

His name's Jeffrey. What's Jarl, what's some of the songs? I'm sure I'd recognize. Living it up Oh yeah, okay Is that him, I don't know Is that a song? I don't know

Everybody here Living it up But bam Something something something Living it up Oh yeah, yeah Yeah And he's also in Fast and Furious movies

Is that Jarl? No Oh, I don't know I don't know I don't know Thinking of a different rapper Dave Oh Oh no he might be

Yeah I think you're right I think you're right Oh fuck I don't know I'm putting it all in a line here Yeah What's he done? Let's see.

Filmography. He's in Fars and Furious. Thank goodness it is Jail Rule. That's, I know him from the song that Matt sang and then from Fals and Furious. Great. Well, if the song that I sang is right. Yeah, it could be wrong. But I don't know.

Sorry, I didn't mean to DERAL. I thought that it would be quite famous. Like, you know, so obvious to everyone else that you would just answer straight away. It's just not a name that I've heard for a long time. Yeah, fair enough. You know, but. Always on time. It's called Living It Up by Jar Rule.

Yeah. Okay. you my heart, baby, but I'm always remembering just the, like, the backing parts. I'm not remembering Jarl Rule in there. Does that make sense?

Yes. Though he did say everybody living it up. Oh, that was him. Yeah, that's his thing. Great, sorry to Daryl, but now I know who we're talking about. Yes. So, yeah, they'd identified a gap in the market

and wanted to create a smooth talent booking process for parties, events, festivals, etc. After putting together a team and working on the project for a few months, the discussion turned to how to promote the product. The idea of a festival or a concert was floated, the intention being to invite a bunch of industry professionals.

Chuck on a little show. Great. This idea was taken and run with, quickly escalating to be a luxury festival held in the Bahamas. Beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. The island in question was Norman's Key, which had previously been owned by Carlos Leda Rivas,

who was a king ping in Pablo Escobar's cartel. Oh. Definitely butchered that name. King, Oh, no. Billy immediately told everyone the island was Pablo Escobas, which it wasn't.

The current owner leased the island to fire media, although Billy told people he had bought the island, but the owner had strict conditions that they make no reference to Pablo Escobar. They were trying to improve

the reputation of the island and didn't want its history to be mentioned. Right. So it relevant to what you're doing. And Pablo Escobar never owned it. Never owned it anyway. Just somebody who...

He's associate it. Exactly right, yes. So just keep that in mind. Okay. That little fact? Relevant. Oh, right. They've been asked to not say anything.

Do not say Pablo Escobar. Great, love that. Okay. Yes, you can have the island for your little party. No mention of Pablo. And he's like, I will not say anything about Ablo Peskabar. No worries. I won't.

Sorry, Billy, I need you to repeat it back. I won't say anything about Parbo. Peskabar. Look, Billy. keep sort of trailing off there. I need to hear it from you. I won't say that. I'm half a lot of course.

I won't. Good enough. Got it on tape. Shake on it. Thank you. So in December of 2016, they hired what in the docker was referred to as the best in the biz. They got Matt projects to handle the advertising and marketing.

And fuck Jerry to handle the social media for the festival. What? Is that someone who's been accused of stealing all the things on Instagram? Jerry. Right. Fuck that guy. Fuck Jerry. So they hired...

It's hard to diss him. They hired some of the biggest models in the world. Bella Hadid, Emily Radikowski, Haley Bieber, and took them to the island to shoot a promo video. Right.

One camera crew was filming the models, another, just filming Billy. And what he's up to? Getting everything on camera. Can we just check it on Billy Cam? What's Billy up to? Oh, getting out of a boat. That's fun.

The whole shoot was essentially just a party. They were drinking all day and doing whatever they wanted because in jail rules words, we're spending so much money we can do whatever we want. Right, he's living it up. You could say. You could say

Jarl Rule is living it up. We're spending so much money we can do whatever we want. Exactly, yeah. What does that mean? So basically, in that part of the documentary one of their chief marketing officers is trying to arrange a shoot where they all go and pat some wild

pigs. And somebody on the phone saying, we can't do that. And Jarl rule is saying, we're spending so much money. If we want to go see the pigs, we can see the fucking pigs. Because there is a famous beach into the Bahamas, right, with wild pigs. I think so. Yeah.

Making stuff up again. No, that's true. You can definitely go there. But they're told, you know, we're not going there. Yeah. Right. And he's like, we're spending so much, if I want to see some fucking pigs, I'm going to see some fucking pigs.

Wow. Which is, you know, a great point from Jarl rule, from Jarr. From Jarre. From Jarre. Great. We're on a first name basis. Jeffrey. So, yeah.

So yeah, they're just partying the whole time. There's footage in the Netflix doco where Billy is just passed out on the beach in the middle of the day. There's just cameras and stuff. There's shooting around him and he's just there still clutching a beer passed out on the sand. Billy. Billy, Billy. There's other footage is just Jarl Rule yelling at the models to get in the water. Bikini optional.

So that's fun. Is he yelling that out? Bikini option? It's night time. They're just all sitting around to fire and he's like, let's get in the water. And the girls are like, I don't want to get in the water. He's like, get in the fucking water. He's really gross.

Oh, my God. That's Billy. No, that was Jarl Rule. Jarl rule. That's Jarre. And of course, the toast that Jarl rule loved to make. And this was cut a few different times. So he's obviously made this announcement, this toast a few times.

Yeah. Said here's to living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and fucking like porn stars. Oh, Jarr. Yeah. Jar's no good He's like, they didn't go down so well last time I'm going to say it again I'll try it again

Gruff crowd Here we go It's the same crowd But they'll warm up to it I said I'm spending a lot of money You will laugh at my jokes Oh man

But yeah This whole party promo worked The press Just around the fact That these supermodels Were on this trip together Was picked up

And started to spread So the promo video comes out and it's really just selling a dream, a luxurious paradise escape where anything's possible. It's just got the girls on the beach. They're on yachts. They're on jet skis. They're swimming. It's beautiful. You know, and then it sort of cuts to like big crowds and DJ sets and stuff. So it's like, oh, it's an island luxurious, amazing fun holiday. You'll get a tan, you'll party. It'll be so fun. Great. I'm in. When can I go? Oh, Dave. Oh, no, no, no. Sounds great.

Text with the video promised an immersive music festival, two transformative weekends, on the boundaries of the impossible. I love that. What does immersive music festival mean? Dave, it's immersive. I mean, what festival are you not immersed? Why do I have to explain this to you?

Sorry, sorry. It's an immersive music festival. You're right, that sounds great. You're immersed, like water. The festival's like water. Right. You just jump right in. Bikini optional.

The best one's bikini option. Absolutely. You don't have to wear a bikini if you don't want to. Well, I will. So on December 12, 2016, Take off your bikini and jacket. Does that work? Yeah.

Because sometimes you get a bit chilly in a bikini, so you put in a little jacket. Yeah. But then obviously you want to get into your pajamas at nighttime. You've got to take them off. Yes. So you can dry your bikini. Get into your pidgeies.

Your pidgeies. They're the pigeon-themed pyjamas. Yeah. Your piggies. I love it. I'm a busy woman, Matt. Don't have a lot of time for full words. I like to mash them together where I can.

So December 12, 2016 was the day. Kendall Jenner, Emily Radikowski, and hundreds of other influences paid by fire simultaneously posted to their Instagram feeds a video with a thumbnail consisting of an orange square and a logo made of stylized flames. They basically just posted orange tiles. So it's just a square, like an image.

Just orange. Not even a video, right. Yeah. It's kind of a bit like Gabbo, Gabbo, Gabbo, Gabo. And you're trying to, you want... What is this? Wow. Yeah, yeah.

And they're like fire fast. It was like that ad campaign in the early 90s where Dipper was working out his finger. You know, one, two, three, and he's just stretching his finger out. And you didn't know what it meant. And it turned out. out it was pokey's were coming.

What an anti-climax. Do they pay dipper with a tile? Did the dipper get a fire tile? Well, how much do you think you would, if you were an influencer, how much would you charge Fire Festival to post an orange tile on your agenda? It might take you upwards of a minute and a half to post. And to be honest, if you're Kendall Jenner, you're probably not even doing it.

Absolutely right, yeah. One of your assistants probably is. Yep. 100k Dave Is this for everyone or the top person? This is Kendall Jenner Kindle Jenner

$5 million dollars $250,000 I went too high and I made it look bad I've done that thing No but still $200,000 That is for the most Oh my goodness Yeah

How are they ever going to make the money back? A fantastic question Because in some ways they've done You know they got this The hype up and they're on their way To get a crowd of this thing, but they sell all the tickets. They're never going to make the money back.

I don't understand. I guess that's the point. Are the tickets $250,000 each? Oh, that's great. Because if they sell one ticket off Kendall Jenner, they're broken even. I mean, they're not cheap. But overnight... And you said hundreds of influences.

They're probably not all charging that, but still, they're charging, you know, 10 grand a bob. Yeah. You've spent so much money. And, I mean, yes they've paid these influences some money for the post but they've also made some promises to them

and I'll talk about that later Oh okay So overnight the fire Instagram blew up was attracting a lot of attention as was the website which offered so much to potential festival goers In terms of accommodation there were rustic tents which were like glamping a bit fancy

Then there were private villas available and even a private yacht option For about 250K you could just have a yacht with a private chef on there Oh, there you go, that's your $250,000. Great. Yeah, easy. Sell that, done. Kendall sells one of them. Bang, and I imagine the... Apart from the cost of the yacht.

The yacht's probably free, right? Yeah, I'd assume the yacht is free. Yeah, you get it for free. And the chef is free. Yeah, exactly. The yacht staff would be free. Yeah. The yachts fuel.

They're working for exposure. Yeah. Exposing their yacht. Within 48 hours, 95% of the tickets were sold. Wow. But some problems were starting to occur. Oh no. Like they'd sold so many tickets

They couldn't actually fit that many people on the island Oh, they'd have to build a second island Isn't that funny? They've sold 95% of the tickets Which is more than they could afford to sell Yeah But they didn't even sell all the ones that they thought they could sell And then they got to 95%

They went, hang on, we should probably do some sums Oh hang on. Have we done any sums yet? Get the calculator out 15s, don't get me on the calculator They probably did They'll figure it out They had heaps of people working with them who know the island

and who are making some very good logistical suggestions. Okay. Great. So what do you do with handy people like that? You fire them. What? That's not what I would do. But is that like a thing like, where the fire festival, we fire? That makes sense.

They literally set them on fire. Yeah, exactly. So a recurring theme throughout this entire story is that someone says, hey, maybe this isn't a good idea and then they are no longer required. You're fired. Oh. Yeah, right. So not listening to logic.

A little bit like that, no one that Naomi Higgins talked to us about. Yes. A lot of people got fired. Any naysayers were fired. Yes. Elizabeth Holmes. See?

Teamwork. Teamwork. Makes a dream work. Thanks for nothing, Dave. Matt and I got that one. Thank you. Hey, I'm here keeping school. One of the biggest problems was that in the promotional video,

some big old text tells viewers that the, island was once owned by Pablo Escobar. So what? They were told not to do that. Yeah. They were told not to do that. And how are people being told that? Um, in the promotional video, which has gone viral.

Oh, okay. Right. Big old letters. Oh, did that slip in there? I told them not to write that. It was not owned by Pablo Escobar. Do you think that's the thing that got them over the edge to selling 95% of the tickets? Like, is it the kind of thing that even needed to be in there?

I, yeah. I doubt it very much. I don't think that would be a selling point for me. But, you know, I'm not the wealthy elite. That's right. So the owners of the island cancelled their arrangement with McVarland soon after. So they were kicked off the island. And they got nowhere to put these 95% of sales.

Yeah. So they're kicked off Norman's Key, and they only had four months before the festival happened on the 28th April. So that island they did have, they would have been able to do the yachts and the glamping and everything. that was all kind of set up? It's still, they still didn't, no, they didn't have enough space. Right.

And there wasn't much infrastructure there, so I think they were going to have to sort of build a lot of stuff. But now they've got to find another place. Yeah. And hope that this next place has a bit of infrastructure. Yeah, and this is four months out. They don't have a venue. Oh, they booked Woodstock only in a couple of weeks,

they'll be fine. Yeah, I think these sort of people are going to be happy with woodstock-like conditions. Yeah. On an island. $250,000 for a yacht? Yeah. Well, we got you a little rubber dingy.

There you go. Free love. I reckon of that. That's a bit of fun, isn't it? Just take a lot of drugs. Take a lot of drugs you won't even know. Worked for your mum and dad. After several small islands that seemed like likely venues were turned down

and with only two months to go before fire festival, so they just lost a lot of time in there looking for a new place. the government gave McFarland a permit to use a site on Great Exuma. In reality, the festival was now going to be in a remote parking lot north of a Sandals resort and a nearby marina where locals' boats were stored. Oh, there's boats there. That's good. And storage.

There's a bit of storage. People need storage. Is this still in the Bahamas? It is. Okay. Great Exuma is not a private or remote island. Instead, the festival was scheduled to take place in an abasurer. abandoned resort development.

It's just a big, empty block on a fairly big island. That's better, it was going to be a resort. That could be something. Yeah, this was going to be a Pablo Escobar's resort.

Don't say that. Material released on social media continued to promote the falsehood that the festival was being hosted on Pablo Escobar's private island, with maps of the site altered to make it appear

as if it was an island unto itself. There's a place called Roker's point and so it's obviously just like this little section of the bigger island and so they just kind of when drawing a map just cut that off like yeah and that's another bit of beach obviously right so like if you to get there you get on a boat and they drive you out and then drive you back and they go welcome to the island there you go we got on over there yeah I can see people getting on the other ferry they could just walk here welcome welcome to the island So now they're on a different island

In an abandoned concrete development site With no infrastructure And less than two months before the festival was to begin The technical production company We contacted around 45 days ahead of the event To set up stages, audiovisual, everything 45 days So they hadn't been booked in before that

No They didn't think at a music festival They didn't think of stage sound Oh no Didn't think of that They'd also booked the festival to run at the same time as the National Regatta, the busiest weekend of the year on the island. The population of the island doubles, and hotels are all booked 12 months ahead of time.

But 500 of the guests had selected the villa package. So now the organisers are trying to find Airbnbs and houses to accommodate their festival goers. Shit. They'd oversold the tents as well, and all influencers who had posted an orange square on Instagram were promised in return, a private villa right on the beach. Oh, and there were hundreds of them. There was about 250 of them, and those villas did not exist. Oh, no.

Yeah, I mean, you were paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why are you promising them another thing? Exactly. I guess it would be good for them to have the influences there posting photos, I guess. Because, I mean, their plan is that it's going to succeed and that it's going to continue. Yeah. So, you know, having a really good first year probably sets them up. Right.

Get all the influences in, them posting photos, people will be wanting to go next year. Great. Well, hopefully we can get there one day. It'll be good to, I'll send an email, see if we can do a pod there. Oh, live podcast. Do you think they'll give us a free tent on the beach? At a very boogie festival. Yeah, I'm sure we have some listeners of that demographic.

Sure. Hello to Kendall. Yes. And Kendall, if you could up your Patreon. That'd be great. Buy a lot. A dollar a month, I mean, come on. Come on.

I mean, we appreciate it, but come on. We know you've got more. In the doco, one of the guys, Mark Weinstein, is a music festival consultant, great job title, who was brought in late in the piece to assist, and he was urging Billy to cancel the influences seeing as they're not paying, and there's nowhere for them to stay.

He was like, tell them not to come. Yeah. When that was shot down, he told them to cancel some of the ticket holders, because again, there was nowhere for these people to stay. The response, which a lot of people got, was we're not a problems-based company. We're about solutions. You need to be positive.

I mean, but he just gave you a solution to your problem. Exactly. Positiveity is great. It's not a solution. Was that guy I told he was no longer required after this advice? Pretty much. No, he stuck around for a bit longer, but regretted it. But what do you do when you're overcommitted and you're out of money?

You get more from attendees. Oh. Oh, well, they sold more tickets. Well, on April 22nd, a week out of the festival, attendees received an email reminding them to load up their festival wristband, which would act as their wallet for the weekend. That's right. It's going to be cashless. Oh, my gosh, it's in scratchy money. Yeah.

So you load up your, it's like a little, it looks like a smartwatch kind of thing, you load that up, and then that's how you pay for food and drinks and whatever you want around the festival. The email said most attendees have loaded things. $3,000 for the weekend. But if you want to reserve tables or partake in extra activities, you'll want to load much more. That's what it said. Most people have already put $3,000 on.

Everybody's getting this email at the same time. Nobody's already loaded it up. But if you put $3,000 on, you're a real tight-ass. A real loser. Yeah, we've only got $3,000 for a weekend. Okay. It's like, do you even want to have fun? Like, do you even belong?

here. And you said this is a week out? Yes. So how's everything looking at this point? Oh, man. They built some villas? Oh, Maddie, Maddie. Built some stages.

No, no, no, no. Stages, though. They've built stages. But they're out of the money. They don't have any money. Okay. So to get money to pay laborers to build all the shit, they just get more money out of the attendees.

A week out and they haven't got a stage yet. Yeah. They got Billy anything. Maybe they have a stage, but they don't, yeah, they... Amazing. It's fucked. Oh, this is stressful. May I remind you as well, there's not a whole lot of infrastructure on the island,

so internet isn't great. So these wristbands haven't been tested and almost definitely won't work because that would entirely rely on Wi-Fi, and there isn't good Wi-Fi there or any. There's no cell phone service. Right, and also the money they're put on there, they won't have on there because we need that money to build shit. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, your balance says 3,000. To us, it says zero. Yeah, I've spent your money. Yeah. But the plan worked in that people did load up their wristband, some, and the first batch of attendees to do so loaded around $800,000 worth. Great. That's good.

It's nuts. Was that by a stage? Hopefully. 250 villas? Yeah, we're about a week out. They don't have enough tents. Around 350 people do not have a place to stay yet. Tense feels like one of the easier ones.

Go to the shop, buy some tents. Well, they were using it rather than the fancy glamping things And I think I have this written down somewhere But rather than the fancy glamping tents They're just using leftover hurricane tents They're just like little domes And it is quite hot there So it's not going to be good

Yeah, about 350 people This is 10 days out 350 people do not have a place to stay yet They do not have enough beds But they don't know that. No, no, no, no, God no. And they're not thinking about just cancelling their tickets. No.

They're just going to see what happens. Yeah. So houses that have been booked haven't been paid for yet. So there's people that are rented out their homes and they haven't had any money. So there was. The good thing is that Instagram influences and that sort of stuff, they're normally, they're going to come and just be okay with downgrades that they haven't heard about. I'm sure they'll be fine.

So casual. Yeah. I'll go with the flow, I reckon. That'll go well and they won't say anything about it online. No. So the brand will still be fine. Great. And that's all I care about.

The brand. Originally there was a $6 million star catering contract that had been arranged, but they didn't have $6 million. So Billy fired the catering company. Again, this is like two weeks out. Festival had promised uniquely authentic island cuisine, local seafood, Bahamian style sushi, and even a pig roast.

But now they had no. caterer for 5,000 people they're expecting. Okay. Well, how much does a fishing rod cost? Get out there. Get out there. This is, you know, experience it. Learn a new skill.

There's no more local food than that food right there. You know, and there's no hunger, like the desperation of you're going to starve. So now, yeah, we're about a week out, no caterer. Glamorous tents are actually leftover hurricane tents with air mattresses in them. People are asking questions on social media because there's no information provided about their accommodation or logistics and no one's getting an answer. So all the social media posts, people are asking very legitimate questions just like, hey, because they took down, they did have like a floor plan of what your fancy tent would look like

and then they took that down. Probably at the point they realized they could not provide those fancy tents. and then people have said, sorry, could you give us like a floor plan just so we know what to bring? Like, I don't know what to pack because I don't know what you're providing because you haven't put that anywhere. I love the idea of people being like, you know, a legitimate question. Can I get a floor plan for the tent? Yeah, it's pretty funny. But you're spending so much.

Right. And it's like glamping. So they're also sort of asking like, are there power points in there? Like what? Oh, okay. Yeah. Should I be bringing my hair dryer? Yes.

Yeah. Important questions. But so they're not getting any answers. Billy's just ignoring this. The social media team were told to delete any negative comments. Always good. Just delete them all. It can't be a great dictator.

Yeah. And then eventually just turn comments off altogether. Great. No longer. People can't comment. People cannot ask you questions. So cancelling the festival wasn't an option. It absolutely was.

But it wasn't because... Feels like even still the best option. Yeah, agreed. Because Billy was in so much debt to investors and didn't have any festival. festival insurance so the show had to go on. Basically, if he didn't get some of the money, but he's fucked. Like, he's just absolutely cooked it. Now, everyone's favorite part of the doco, of course. And Dave, you might have seen memes or clips or parodies of this at the time.

Customs refused to release four containers of Evian water unless they were paid $175,000. Billy called Andy King, an associate of his who was helping him with the festival, and asked him to take one for the team and go down to customs and suck dick in exchange for the release of the water. I've totally heard people reference some sort of blowjob scenario, but that, so the boss is asking someone to go down there and do that to release several cases of water. Absolutely a case for HR. It is so fucked. Yeah, because I vaguely remember watching it and the assumption was that for some reason that

the guy who would be releasing the water would want his dick sucked. But it turns out that's not at all the case. No. He's just assuming that. Everyone wants their dick sucked. So just give him what he wants. It kind of feels a little bit like, I don't know, yeah, you're right. The customs guy just gave him the water in the end and said,

okay, just take it. But we're top of your list for paying us as soon as you've got the money. And Andy says, thank you very much. And off he goes. But it felt a little bit like, Billy went, Andy, you're gay. Go suck a dick. Right.

So it wasn't like, all right, hey, Billy, I've just been speaking to customs. They've given us two options. It's either 175K or I can suck the manager off. No, it feels like Billy's gone. I know how we can fix this. I'll send a guy down. Oh, my God. Yeah, like he just doesn't understand how anything works.

Yeah. And so Andy goes, chats to the guy and the guy says, okay, have the water. Oh. But I think just the part that he's talking about it essentially shows you how fucked it was. and how desperate they were to get shit done and how much of an absolute cluster fuck the festival is and also just how the people working around Billy kind of get swept up in his bullshit.

Not that they were all agreeing with him all the time. A lot of people like, this is fun. Everyone's like, this is fucked. Is this our classic cult leader sort of... Yeah. What do we say? They've always got a bit of charisma or something. Well, Andy's also the one who kind of talks about...

He was thinking about Woodstock. And he's like, nobody now remembers the people who died or the injuries or there was no food or that it was this or this or the mud. You know, they just think about it as this legendary thing. I think maybe they all, none of them quite want to walk away in case they pull it off. Right.

Because you want to be a part of it if it does go well. Maybe it's that kind of psychology. FOMO. Yeah, or also just feeling kind of obligated because you've been working on it for a while. And so now you kind of feel like you have to fix things and make it work so that it can go ahead. I don't know.

But yeah, he did not have to suck a dick. Right. So that's baffling. But he was prepared to. He was prepared to. And he speaks so candidly about his documentary. It's so funny. He actually expected that to happen.

Yes. So this is what he says. He goes, I went home, I had a shower. I, you know, used some mouthwash.

And I went down there fully prepared to suck a dick. The customer goes like, whoa, whoa, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening?

I just want to be paid. Yeah. I just want to be paid. And can I just say, is the paid thing? Is that like legal or is that a bribe? No, I think it was a, like a tax or an import tax.

Okay, right, right, right. I just wasn't sure if I was like, hey, you've got to give it something. Huge, like, not shipping containers, maybe like semi-trailer size. But so much water. So much. The fact that they've got water is something, though. Yeah, they've got water. Like real base level stuff.

Yes. We won't lose people to dying of dehydration. That's great. And they'll probably survive for, like, it's a weekend. You'd survive for a couple days of that food. Yeah. Yeah. There's leaves around.

You've got water. That's right. You'd be right. Do lots of drugs. I was going to say, people are probably on things anyway. Yeah, you won't be thinking about your food. Anyway, so I just knew that if I didn't mention that part, I would get a lot of emails because everybody was just like, what?

Yeah, okay. Watching that and it got parodied a lot. And it really, Andy King's like, he's big on Instagram now. Anyway, so the opening day of the festival is upon us. early in the morning of April 27th, heavy rain fell on great exuma, soaking the open tents and mattresses piled out in the open air for guests' arrival later that day.

Oh, so the mattresses are wet. Yeah. We've done a few episodes about kind of disastrous opening days, but I think for the most part, they normally pull it off to some extent. I'm thinking of Disneyland in particular. All these things went wrong, but they sort of got away with it,

and it's still a successful ongoing thing. Like that thing with Woodstock, you look back and go, everyone thinks... Yeah, Woodstock is another good example. But yeah, this... It doesn't feel like they're anywhere near it. I reckon they could redeem themselves. Do you reckon? Yep.

Okay. Love a happy ending, Jess. Yeah, well... Right? Right? Mm-hmm. The first flights from Miami International Airport to Exuma International Airport, operated by swift air and extra airways landed at 6.20 a.m.

Not the private jets that all the promotional material alluded to, but small crappy planes packed to the brim. People are like, they're filming themselves on the way and they're like, this is like lower than coach. And these are influences and stuff, so they're like expecting the best. There's no seats on this plane. Yeah. Let's a B.YO chair.

How much were the tickets that meant they thought they were all going to get private Jets. Yeah, I know. It did vary quite a bit. But you could have, like, yeah, the yacht for $250,000. There was, like, a VIP package where essentially you were, like, in with the talent. Ah. And, but it was like, it was a house of eight.

So in total, I think it was like $500 grand or something. It was fucking crazy. Yeah, right. $500,000 asleep adjacent to JAR. Yeah. You haven't talked about the lineup too much. How far along did they get booking it? Like, have they advertised the line up?

Am I right in saying Blink 182 were involved? Yeah, no, that is true. I think I didn't note it down because most of them did not turn up. Right. Well, lucky them. Well, I think I'll talk about Blink 182 in a sec. But having a look at the line up here, I've just Googled it again. Major Laser, Disclosure, Skeptor, Catronata, Claptone.

lots and lots of artists. It would have been a good festival. Yeah. Yeah, no, it definitely would have. Would have. But, okay, so the first flights arrived, but seeing as the tents were ruined, the first arrivals were brought to an impromptu beach party

at a beachside restaurant where they were applied with alcohol and kept waiting for around six hours. Oh, just trying to distract them. Hey, over here. Yeah, while frantic preparations at the festival site continued. So they just took them to a bar

and just got them drunk in the sun for six hours. You've just been on a plane. Were they going with it? For a bit, yeah? They were kind of like, oh yeah, cool. And then after a while, it started to sort of click for a few people

that something's not right. Later arrivals were taken directly to the grounds by school buses. Private school buses? No, those big yellow bad boys. Driven by celebrities. Charas at the wheel. He's like, I was in Fast and the Furious.

I can drive. I can drive. I can drive quite fast. Where's the knots on this thing? Where's the nose? So yeah, they're taken by school bus and the true state of the festival's site became apparent.

Their accommodations were little more than scattered disaster relief tents with dirt floors, some with mattresses that were soaking wet as a result of the morning rain. A dirt floor. Lockers for their valuables was still being unpacked

as festivals attendees arrived at the site. Like all these lockers and they're on their side piled up still wrapped in plastic. There's nowhere for people to put their stuff. Luggage was brought to the site in a semi-trailer at around 8pm with no organisation or logistics and people were just told to grab their bags. Oh shit. There's hundreds of people trying to find their bags here and then help themselves to a tent. No planning or allocation, just a free-for-all.

Even some people are like, I paid $200,000, do I get a bed at hand? No. Attendees started to post on social media highlighting the issues such as no lighting to help people find their way around, an unfinished gravel lot, a lack of medical personnel or event staff, no cell phone or internet service, not enough portable toilets, no running water and heavy-handed security. These problems were exacerbated as a festival had been promoted as a cashless event, leaving many attendees without money for taxi fares or other expenses. Like if they wanted to get out of there, they couldn't.

They didn't have any cash on them. The tweet that broke the internet, though, was the most depressing sandwich you've ever seen, which you mentioned, Dave. The tweet read, the dinner at the dinner that at Fire Festival promised us was catered by Stephen Starr is literally bread, cheese and salad with dressing. And the photo is exactly that.

And it's not like, it doesn't look like a sandwich. It's just two shitty pieces of bread with some cheese not quite on the bread and then there's salad over in a corner. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. Yeah. I mean, I would still eat that. I mean, I'd put it together. Yeah, and it looks like craft singles cheese as well.

Yeah, it doesn't look, it's not great. But that sounds looks freshish. But again, when you've been told it's going to be this like five-star dining experience and you've paid so much money. and some of these people are probably quite wealthy but others are probably like really saving or putting this all on credit cards to like for the status for the it's...

Sorry, are they putting on their magnesium card or... Magnesium. Magnetius Dave. Sorry, magnesium, that's a title that actually would be better. What he was actually selling in the end wasn't a festival, it was a life lesson. Yeah. Yeah, prankier.

In the doco one guy points out that a bunch of very famous models posting orange tiles on the Instagram is essentially what built the entire festival. And one kid with a few hundred followers posted a picture of cheese on toast and pretty much destroyed it. So the festival, it just became a real cluster fuck from there. People didn't have places to sleep. It was just a big old mess.

Eventually the festival was officially cancelled. It was all in that same night. It cancelled on night one. Yeah. So I think I read that like a local band Because I think it was sort of like The festival probably starts the next day You know how you often get in the night before

And there might be like some light entertainment on And then you know the next day is the main thing I think a local band like performed for a bit But that was it Because Blink 182 pulled out the day of And no like other acts just did not turn up I think they were just like Oh, that's a cluster fuck.

So anyway, they definitely could have cancelled before hundreds of people had arrived to a remote island. So now... Not that remote, though. Not that remote. One of the good things about it. Not that remote. At least it wasn't that remote. But it's still very hard to, you know, it's not like you could just go to the airport and get on a flight.

Right. Because the flights had been cancelled. Well, like, well, that just used one of their private jets. Yeah. Most of the attendees were stranded. Flights to and from were cancelled and the first flight back to Miami boarded at 1.30am the next sort of morning, but was delayed for hours due to issues with the flights manifest,

and it was cancelled after sunrise and passengers were locked in the airport terminal with no access to food, water or air conditioning. They're just stuck there. Oh, what a nightmare. Can't go anywhere. The flight eventually, left Exuma later that morning and more charter flights to Miami departed throughout the day. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism apologized on behalf of the nation and denied having any

responsibility for how the events unfolded. Like it's not their fault. The workers who constructed the site and who had worked at the restaurant that provided meals for the festival were never paid. And Marianne Rowley owned the restaurant at Exuma Point in the Bahamas that was hired to cater. She was an audience favorite when the doco came out, and she broke the hearts of viewers when she said that she was out of pocket around 50K. Oh, because she was feeding people. So she had 10 staff working 24-7 to be feeding staff to be like just, yeah,

they were cooking constantly. And then everybody just fucked off. There's a whole bit in the doco, which it was sort of hard to get all that much information out of. But essentially, when the festival got canceled, it was official, all the workers turned up at this house where Billy and all their head honchos were staying and like said they just stood at the front like pay us and so everybody fled there was like talk of um you know from the the the people the the workers sort of saying like take them hostage like to hold them for ransom it was it was like there was talk of it getting violent so all of

these, Andy King again, this guy who was prepared to suck dick to take one for the team, he talks about swapping clothes with somebody, jumping in the back of a car just to be driven away. It was like very scary and full on for them. So they, all of the fire festival staff have just fucked off. Nobody's been paid and she had 10 staff working for her, so she's paid them. So she's down 50 grand. But after the documentary was released, a GoFundMe was set up and raised $140,000. Oh, wow. That's great.

So she actually made a real profit. Yeah, she's talking very well. So that's a nice little bit of good news in it. So Fire Festival announced that it would offer all attendees a choice between a full refund or VIP tickets to the following years festival. I love a VIP. You can have VIP tickets to next year, which, finally enough, never happened. What? I know.

I reckon that most people would have asked for the refund. Yeah, did they get it? Probably not. So also, let's keep in mind. The whole reason this festival happened was because they were trying to promote an app. That's right. They didn't even, this isn't their main thing. No, it's not.

But while the festival was happening, a whole team of people were still in the States working on the fire app, which was the whole point of this thing. So the festival falls apart and Billy comes back to the office and fucks everyone over. It's in the doco. It was recorded. He says, we're not firing anybody. We're just letting you know there'll be no payroll in the short term. There's no official employment.

And one of the staff members is like, so you won't, like, fire us, which means we'd be eligible for unemployment benefits. You're just making us quit, and therefore we're not eligible. So he's just fucked them right over. What's in it for him doing it that way? I have no idea.

Probably nothing? I don't know. Jesus. There's just no payroll at the moment. So everyone's fucked? He doesn't like negativity. Yeah. That's more positive if you just wait.

Surely that counts as being fired. Yeah. So they should be eligible for unemployment benefits. So as a result of the festival, Billy McFarland and Jarlal were the subject of a $100 million lawsuit in the state of California, with Jarl rule later being dismissed from the lawsuit by a judge in July 2019. The lawsuit alleges fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith.

which was basically partly due to the inadequate catering and the incident where attendees were locked in the airport and negligent misrepresentation. In April of 2021, only a month ago from the time of recording, a potential $2 million settlement with class members was proposed in which each of the 277 ticket holders who joined the action would receive approximately $7,000 each, or $7,200. The proposal had not yet been approved by a judge

a hearing was scheduled for May 13, 2021. That's today. Whoa. Or like, we're ahead, so tomorrow. Whoa. So it's ongoing. Yeah. But by the time the episode comes out.

It'll be out there. Yeah. I know. In addition to the class action lawsuit that was filed in May of 2017, six federal and four individual lawsuits were filed in relation to this festival as well. In July, this is fun. In July of 2017, McFarland was represented by a public defender at a bail hearing after his previous legal team had not been paid enough to continue to represent him. So he's got no cash.

Can I ever paid anyone? No, absolutely not. That's how he's so wealthy. If you'd never paid rent or bought anything, you'd be so rich. True. You know? You know, when you look at your bank statement and it says how much money you've put in, you're like, how? Where'd that go?

When that go? Yeah, your tax at the end of the year? It's like, you made this much. I'm like, no, I did it. Why am I so poor? Why did I have anything? Anyway, March 2018, Billy pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in federal court in Manhattan

and admitted to using fake documents to attract investors to put more than $26 million into his company. And he agreed to forfeit that $26 million. In June of 2018, he was charged with selling fraudulent tickets to events such as the Met Gala, Burning Man and Coachella while out on bail. Are you just faking tickets? Yes.

To like the Met Gala, which is not a ticketed event. Right, you have to be invited, right? You have to be invited and you have to be like approved by Anna Winter. Exactly. Why is he doing this? Just another scam. He just can't stop scammer.

He's just like, hey, you want to buy this ticket? You'll sit next to be on. It's like he's gone from kind of like blurry, like, If he could have pulled that off, it wouldn't have been a scam. Was he intending for that festival to be like that the whole time? No, I don't think so. But Magnus, I think you just get too stuck in it. Because Magnesis was, like, it was one of those things where you could get tickets to these exclusive events in a discounted price.

And people would do that. And then the day before, their tickets would be cancelled. Oh. Like it was... Even before, right. Yeah, yeah. So from the very first one with Magnesis. It's always been pretty dodgy.

Yeah. This one now is like straight up just forging tickets. Yeah, that's fucking crazy. But that's while he's out on bail, while he's being investigated for fraud. He's an idiot, allegedly. Nailed it. So in October of 2018, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison. He's currently incarcerated in Ohio.

Oh, the great state. He must feel lucky. That is like, if you're going to be. incarcerated anywhere, I'd be incarcerated there. If you can be incarcerated anywhere, I'd be incarcerated. In Ohio. And even Jarl Ruhul, I didn't write this down, but there was like a very funny tweet from Jail Ruh sort of like, he also frauded me.

I'm also a big old victim. That was kind of once the doco came out and everyone was like, Jarl Rul, what the fuck? Jha. and then when everybody was really outpouring a lot of support for Marianne and all the people in the Bahamas who had put so much work into it. And for them, it was a really big thing coming to the Bahamas and it was an ongoing thing. You know, it was set up, I think the discussion was like for at least five years.

So they're like, this is ongoing work and a big boost to our economy. That's huge. And then she's lost all that money. So when people are like tweeting about her, Jail Rule was like, oh, I'm so sorry, you know, I'm so sorry. We didn't mean to hurt anybody. Jarre rule was going to be like, I've also set up a GoFundMe. For me.

Yeah, it's been really hard. GoFund Jha. It's a new app. We're actually having a festival to launch it. But anyway, and one of them, Mark, one of the guys in the docker, he sort of says, like, he just wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years time, you know, Billy's doing something very similar that probably will end in a similar way. Yeah.

It feels like he doesn't learn. It's so well publicised now. Yeah. You'd think that people wouldn't fall for it again. Nothing like this anyway. He'd hope so. He might have to go to a different market. He's done young people now.

He might start defrauding the elderly. Yeah. Just go door to door. Would it stock 20-30. He's only like 29, 30, so he's got plenty of time ahead of him to con some more people. So maybe that can be a fun update I can do one day. Yeah. But that is my report on Fire Festival.

Hey, the happy ending there, Dave. We'll obviously be attending 2020. I've got my ticket. Yes. Every year it rolls over, of course. Of course. The original year. They say, would you like a refund?

I said, no, just roll over. I'm getting a triple VRP past the next year. Yeah, he gets better and better. And with inflation, I'm actually up for money. I've only paid $20,000. That's ticket now. Today's price is $21,000. Ooh, that's a savvy investment.

So looking forward. Does it feel like he wasn't miles off making, like if he just had a little better business knack or something, he probably could have pulled off something. Yeah, I don't know. Or maybe if he just listened to people a little bit more. Yeah, I think it's that. Because everybody who had known him from a, you know, a young age, because his first company, Splings.

Was it Splings? Splings. He was about 20. So there were some people who would known him since then and they were like, Like he is like a genius. Right. He's such a good entrepreneur. He's got a good sort of eye for, you know, what people want, etc.

Because he's very charismatic. He's a great salesman. All that kind of thing. I think maybe it is that that ego or, yeah, something gets in the way and you can't listen to other people because you know everything. Sorry, that was, I was talking about you specifically there, Matt. I don't have a lot of belief. That's always been my issue.

Yeah, maybe it's that. that just stopped him from actually thriving. He had potential. Just to be able to get all, it's weird to say, but it's sort of like, what a wild achievement to have such a big cluster fuck. Yeah. Like you've brought in so many people. You've fucked over so many people.

So many people. And achievement in itself. Imagine the admin involved with just like. To be that bad. Making false claims about how well your business is doing and stuff like that. It must just be, ah, so much work. Yeah, and he just wouldn't have the thing that, I would have, which is guilt and stress, it would ruin you.

Yeah, none of that. But, yeah, he's obviously just missing those parts of his brain or something where he just is able to not feel guilty about fucking everyone over. Feel awful. But, yeah, maybe he just has that thing where he doesn't see it that way. Yeah. You mean lack of shame. I got, I was unlucky.

That's all. A few things went against us. It was a good plan. Yeah. Hey Dave, when you, there's actually, I found an article saying five rappers who appear in the Fast and Furious franchise. Oh, cool. It's one of the biggest employers of rappers in the world. Yeah, who are the, who are the bar?

Jarre rules first listed. I think he, because he's a recurring character, I believe. But so is ludicrous. Ludicrous is the one I was thinking of. He's in 25, 6, 7 and 8. Okay. Whereas Jarre rules only in the first one. Oh.

So when you say recurring. Maybe I was thinking of a ludicrous. Then gin is in the second one. I've never even heard of gin. Gin? I don't know gin. Bow wow is in 3 and 7. Oh yeah.

He no longer little. We talked about him recently. Australia's own Iggy Azilia. Ozalia? Azalea. He's in film number 7. I didn't know that. I think I stopped watching at number 5.

Don't tell Michelle Brazier. She loves that series. I watched them all in a chunk at some point to get up to date. And I enjoyed them, but I couldn't tell you a thing about any of them. Nah, not at all. But they had cars in it, so my brother loved it. So, it was on heavy rotation at our house. I watched Gone in 60 seconds recently.

Oh, yeah. Oh, with a cage. Yeah. That was pretty good. But it's sort of, it just sort of ends and you're like, huh. What's gone in 60 seconds? Yeah, I guess the car. I think it's...

The car has gone from the people who own the car. Hot wire is. in 60 seconds, right? Gotcha. Because the movie did go for quite a lot longer than that, which was disappointing. What, 60 minutes? Even more.

What? Yeah, it just kept going. 65. Well, possibly. But it felt like longer. That's nuts. There was some, you know, there was some fun stuff in it, but yeah.

It just felt like a bit of nothing. Anyway, whatever. We're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the music of gin. Oh, yeah. Let me look up gin for you, Dave. No, gin. Is it spelt J-I-N or G-I-R-N?

Oh, there's multiple things here. There's a Chinese state. There's a dynasty. No, hang on, here we go. Jin. Here we go. A 2013 Turkish-German film. No, that's not him.

So many Jins. It's big. It looks like a lot of famous Japanese people are named Jinn. I don't know. I can't find him. I don't if I've found him already. MC Jin. There he is, so I found him. Hong Kong American rapper.

Damn. How do you not find him? All catchphrases in fan culture. Jin's catchphrases, are you? A Chinese interjection roughly equivalent to, oh my gosh. Good for him. That's cute. Good for Jin.

Good for Jin. But anyway, guys, that's true. brings us to everyone's favorite part of the show. The fact quote of question section, which I think has a little jingle against some of this. Fact quote or question. Jim! Your ways remembers the gin.

Now really, I mean, that's the jingle for this section, but really it's the section that opens up this whole second half of our show, which we don't really have a name for, but it's just the second half. Yeah. The better half. I did it again. Jess went down on a chair again. Jess, stop going down on your chair.

Whoa. You can just pay the tax. It's okay. So, yeah, in this section, we like to thank a bunch of our supporters. If you get on board at patreon.com slash do go on pod or dogoonpod.com. You can support us for a bunch of different levels, different amounts of money, and this is sounding very much like five. And it sounds like five vessels, but we honestly, we put out the stuff every month.

Yeah. We're good. We're good on our promise. We've got a multi-year track record here, people. We actually do it. We put out over 100 bonus episodes. We put out. We do.

We go down on chairs. We put out episodes. The most recent bonus episode that we put out probably last week at this stage, but when this one comes out is I went back and did one of our most requested mystery topics, Dietlof Pass. We did many years ago. I did a Diet Love Pass part two because it's been two in the last year or so new scientific breakthroughs. that might explain what happened to those poor Russians. That was a fun episode. We recorded it last night and we laughed a lot.

Yeah, it was very silly, but a lot of fun. So there's a bunch of, yeah, like I've said, over 100 bonus episodes you can get at the moment. There's also things like Facebook group that you can get involved in. It's sort of like an exclusive beach party in a way. Yeah, absolutely. And the catering is fantastic. Fantastic.

Very good. And one of the other things you can get involved. in, if you're on the Sydney-Shaunberg Deluxe Memorial Additional level, you have to give us a fact, a quote, or a question. You also get to give yourself a title, and we've got

four of those to read out now. Is that all I need to say before we go into these? I believe so. All right, so first up, we have Gary Jay from the UK. Gary. Gazzha! And Gary Jay has given himself the title

of, Waiting to Hear If I've got that promotion, they said they'd be in touch, but that was a decade ago. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Gary, do you work with these people every day? That's a long wait. Gatty J has asked a question.

Here is the question. I found out not long ago, Colitelli was first broadcast in Australia on ABC TV on the 28th of Feb bracket. I thought I'd make it easy for you to pronounce Feb. Wrote Feb

instead of Facebook. February. 1956? 9. Oh, that's TV was 95. Oh, damn. Color TV was 75. Oh, yeah, way later.

He said it was on something called Auntie Jack introduces color in a one-off tele-special edition of the Auntie Jack show, which is a clip they play every now and then on sort of his TV docos in Australia, where the colour is sort of creeping up from the bottom of the screen and the characters are saying, ugh, get it down like it was a rising water almost. Pretty clever.

Hasn't got to a question yet, Gatti, but we'll continue on. It was created two years after the Arnie Jack show finished and featured the main character, Arnie Jack, played by Graham Bond, even though she had been killed off in the last season in 1973. The episode was five minutes long and was the first show on ABC television to be broadcast in colour. He said, oh yeah, my question is, is Auntie Jack any relation to Auntie Donna?

Sorry for wasting your time. I hope everyone is well and keeping safe. Not at all. Auntie Jack is actually Auntie Donna's auntie. Yes. Oh, right. You know, you hope as a young person that one day you'll grow up and be an auntie yourself.

Yeah. And that did happen for Auntie Donna. So yes, actually, yeah, strong relation there. And they worked in the, you know, took up the family business of comedy. Yeah, which is lovely. Working in colour. Yeah, they do work in colour. Do you know Auntie Jack's catch-frey?

or what it was. Was it? I'm trying to remember Jin's catch rays. That was, uh, it was, uh, I'll rip your bloody arms off. Oh, that's fun. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. You know, aunties.

Classic aunties. Well, it was like a, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, I've never seen an episode or anything, but apparently it was very, it was, uh, pretty, it was good stuff. Yeah, great. But comedy doesn't always date that well. And you see clips sometimes, you go, this is what the, Parents' generation laughter.

There you go. But I think classic stuff, I should probably check out more. You know, like our kids all think, yours and mine, will think that the stuff we find funny. Have you got some news? Well, the stuff we find funny will be so lame to them, and that'll be so heartbreaking. Yeah.

I mean, I guess the lesson is don't share any of your passions with anyone else. Yeah, that's a great point. Especially from other generations. Learn that in the bloody, the bloody river dance episode. Get over it, man. I won't. I won't get over it. Get over it. No.

So Jess, when's our kid Jew? I don't know. We should ask the doctor. We should ask. It's been a while. I think we've skipped a step, but... Will I be a godfather of here, or... Well, we'll, yeah, just wait and we'll...

We'll get back to you. We'll let you know. Our people call your people. Put in my application. The next one comes from Paul Meller, who's given himself the title of I'm Batman. That's funny. It's a good title. And Paul's offered us a fact.

Here is the fact. It's another longish one here. This fact is inspired by the report on big things as tourist attractions, which was another one of the bonus reports. If you want to hear that, go to patreon.com slash to go on pod. That's right. We're, I broke down the history. In Australia, if you're not from familiar, we have a lot of big things around the place. You big pineapple, your big bananas, your big potatoes.

We love it big. We're a sunburnt country and we love big shit. And one of them was a big shit. They're just roadside tourist attractions is what we found most of them to be. But want to hear this fact from Mella. When I was Butterboy, my family often made the short trip from Oldham to Blackpool in northwest England. To spend the day by the sea and enjoy the fun fair rides and general cheesiness of the resort. Fair to Blackpool as a resort town. Sounds fun. I remembered recently that

on several occasions there was a huge replica of King Kong climbing the Blackpool Tower and it used to scare the crap out of me. Never understanding what it was properly back then, I did a bit of research. Turns out that in 1983 for the 50th anniversary of the original 1933 movie and an 85-foot-tall inflatable King Kong was attached to the mast of the Empire State Building at a cost of $100,000. However, the giant fake primate did not fare well in the wind so high up and was taken down soon after. The eight-story nylon King Kong balloon, which had a blowout in an armpit during a test,

developed a hole in its left shoulder during inflation and lay in a heap on the side of the building's mast. The beast caused mayhem on the streets below as people... And mayhem in the sheets. Not a generous lover. King Dong. The beast caused mayhem on the streets and in the sheets. As people in the city were looking up instead of at the traffic.

Two biplane, symbolic of those that shot King Kong down a half century before, buzzed the building. Dudging five helicopters that carried photographers and some jet airliners flying special routes to give passengers a view of the ape. The following year, an inflatable Kong appeared in Blackpool. I'm not sure how long it was there, what happened to it since, or even how it was organized, but some of the photos are pretty crazy. It is no wonder I would not walk near it as a kid.

That is a, well, that's a good, that's a fact. Is it fun, Jess? Thank you. Yes, it is pretty fun. Wow. Certainly not boring, which is my domain. See, this is just how we work, you know, without one of us, we crumble. That's right, because facts are one of three things.

Boring, grim, or fun. Exactly. Thank you very much, Paul. This next one comes from David Loring, who, do you want to see if you can find a photo that Kong on in Blackpool or in the blow-up one in 83? This one comes from David Loring. Captain, giving himself the title of Captain of the Edison. to actually functional blood test machine relay team.

Remember they at the run the blood to another room to pretend that it was working. That's right. That's so funny. And David has offered a fact as well. David's fact is the colour magenta is a lie. What? It's known as an extra spectral colour, which means there's no visible wavelength of light that corresponds to the colour.

or in simpler terms Magenta doesn't exist What we perceive as magenta is actually a combination of red and blue light battling it out in our brains and making us think we see a colour that's not really there. Whoa! All right, that's not a grim fact.

Is it boring, Dave? No. But it's very interesting. It's interesting fun? Yeah, like telling someone, like even if I go into it, magenta's not real, you go, that's kind of fun. Maybe.

Maybe? Please, do go on. Well, you're the expert here, but if it was up to me. And it's not. I would call that fun. Well? But it's not up to me. It is fun.

Yes. I'm enjoying watching your fun instincts bloom. I enjoy that. I also enjoy, I have Googled, if you look up the Blackpool Museum project, there is a photo of King Kong 1984. Whoa. That's cool. Love it. That's awesome.

That's in 1984, but that photo looks like it's from 100 years ago. Totally. Oh, there it is in colour. Ah, yeah, love it. Yeah, I'd be scared of that. Look better in black and white. Yeah. Everything does.

Everything does. The artie. All right. Cheers to you, David. Finally, we've got one. Sorry. The related photo, Panicked woman believes Blackpool Tower is melting

after boyfriend's Photoshop prank. He just photoshopped very badly that tower to look a bit wobbly and has obviously sent that to her. It's so bad. Oh, that is so good. That's great. He had written Blackpool Tower

started melting today. This is her applying caps. No way. New message. What the hell? How did it melt? How did it melt? How the fuck can the tower melt?

Don't know, man. Too hot, I think. You wrote that. Something very funny about calling your partner man. Don't know, man. Very good. Too hard or something. I like to call my bro.

sometimes. I don't know, bro. I don't know, man. That is a great response. Very good. That's so funny. I don't know. The guilt would have kicked in and I would have just joking. Just joking. It's a very good Photoshop from me. Very good. Yeah, you were right to be fooled.

I failed it. All right. So the final fact, quite a question. This week comes from Nathan Swap, who has given himself the title of Master of Joining Petrions at 1am. Ah, an important role. And Nathan's asked a question.

His question, I like it. I think the most succinct of all of the entry so far. This one's from Nathan. What past topic would you like to see as a film or novel, or could be improved with a primate? Okay, past topic. What would make a good film? It should be some sort of like adventure kind of.

topic or something. I feel like the woman who fell from the sky, which is, there's a short documentary on that, but I feel like it could be a feature-length movie. Emily Blunt. Great. That's why I'm putting forward. Yep.

She'd be good in that wandering. Yeah. To the jungle. Wasn't she quite young? Yes. Yes, very young in her 20s, I believe. I mean, if they could age down Samuel L. Jackson and Captain Marvel, they can make Emily.

You want to say they can age down Samuel Ler Jackson, surely he's right for the wrong. Let's get him in there. Get him in there. He's in every movie. He can do anything. I'm thinking about the, I can't quite remember a name, but the woman who was on the run, her family took her on the run.

Yes. Oh, Pauline Dakin? Pauline Dakin, yeah. That's a great story. That was a very cool story. Yeah. Could be. Definitely, if it hasn't already.

And it could be like, like we were with the report with you, Matt, not sure what's real and what's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's got that thriller. I think a primate in that would take away from that a little bit. You'd be like, okay, they've gone too far. So no primate in that one. What's a good topic to add a primate into, though?

Maybe one of the heists. Maybe the, yeah, that transi book heist. So let's get a chimp as a getaway driver. Yeah, it's fantastic. Very instinct. Yeah. Chimp driver. They're very good drivers, chimps, I assume.

I can only. assume. If we can do it, they can do it. I reckon that this week's episode could make a good documentary or two. Okay. But could it be improved by a primate? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think the festival could have been.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, something to do. A primate. Yeah. Do the primate. Do it. Do the primate. It's a new craze.

So thank you very much to Nathan for that fantastic question there, as well as David, Paul and Gary for their facts. Gary and Paul, especially very in-depth stuff there. I would not rip off your bloody arms. I've butchered that. You know who would? A chimp. Chimp, yeah.

Oh, okay. Arnie Jack. Played by a chimp. Now played by a chimp. Perfect. The other thing we like to do is thank a few of our Patreon supporters. We've been on the shout-out level. Jess Lomba comes up with a little game somehow related to

the episode? Yeah. So one of the things I forgot to mention in the report was that some of the attractions that the festival had on offer, one of them was a treasure hunt, which we love here at doing a lot. We love treasure hunts. We love a treasure hunt.

So I'm thinking these people, we give them all an activity or some kind of stall or something that they're running at a festival. Okay, great. You know what I mean? At a working festival or a failed festival? Working. Like if Fire Festival, if they pulled it off

and it really was the luxurious thing that they were hoping for, what are these people doing at the festival? They can be partaking or they can be running it. Maybe partaking. That's more fun for them. All right. Great. Well, if I can kick off,

I'd love to thank someone who's been waiting patiently, just got in contact asking if I'd missed shouting them out. And it turns out I had. So thank you so much from Round Rock in Texas in the United States

Melissa Shook. Melissa Shook is competing in a hula hoop competition. Oh! But Hula hoop's diamond encrusted. Wow.

Yeah, that's right. That fire. Classy. Yeah. That's a classy hoop. And so far, Melissa is up to four hoops on the go at once.

Oh, right. It's had to sort of a quantity. It's both quantity and quality. Unquality. It's about shrivenship. Oh, okay. So, sort of judge like the Olympic style. Exactly right, yes.

Other gymnastics. There is a rigorous criteria. German judge, notoriously hard in the hula hoop. Thank you very much, Melissa. I'd also love to thank from Gugong in New South Wales, Australia. Patrick Doswell or Doswell. Patrick is... At a dolphin show, everybody gets their own dolphin.

Oh, wow. And throughout the course of an afternoon, you are taught how to do a trick with your dolphin. It is questionable ethically. Yeah, I'm feeling for the dolphins here. Yeah, but that's very on brand for this festival. Exactly. They are incredibly wealthy assholes. So not you, obviously, Patrick.

You're just going along for the experience and the fun, but the people running it, assholes. You've got a free dolphin, though. But, yeah, you got a dolphin. And you and your dolphin actually had a really beautiful connection. And that dolphin told you telepathically that they're actually quite happy. Oh, that's nice. So it's okay.

Nice. Yeah. It was a good save. Cheers, Patrick. And finally from me, I'd love to thank again from Texas, from Garland in Texas in the United States. Josh Harmon. Josh is playing table tennis. Okay.

He's playing against former multi-Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras. Wow. Pistol. Everyone you play, everyone gets their own former wooded champion that you play table tennis against. And a fun little twist. It's not just table tennis like over the table, you kind of have to bend over, hurt you back.

It's like this huge life-sized table tennis court. Yes. You stand on the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have just oversized paddles? Yeah, yeah. They're much bigger. The net is bigger.

And you sort of have to do a bit of running up and down. Right. Still just big ping pong plastic balls? Yes. Right. That sounds fun. But they're like very big. They're like volleyball-sized balls. And then, but what they, you realize when you leave the court, it's not a really big table tennis thing. You just get shrunk down. They've got that technology there.

And then they put you back, obviously. Yeah. And they put Pete back as well. Yeah. Pete's fine. Yeah. Checking on. Pistol Pete's welfare. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, pistol. It was unstoppable. It was boring when I was a kid. kid. I'm just like,

Who's going to win? I always won it again. Great. Yeah. Whatever. There's always been someone like that in tennis, I think. Especially in the men's. So it's been someone like that on this podcast. There's always a dominoator.

It gets boring because she just wins all the time. It's very sweet of you to say, Bob. Who else wants to thank some. I'll jump in if you don't mind, Bob. I don't mind, please. I would like to thank from Ringstead in D.K. Denmark. Denmark.

Holy shit. Love this. To Maya or Maha, it's M-A-J-A, Maya Liquorgaard. Wow. Maya Liquor-Gard. Fantastic name there. Incredible. It is Denmark as well.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your support. I've made some pretty crap suggestions, so very open to the guys. No, I loved your, your ethical dolphins. Yeah, that was good. I love, when I go to my favorite music festival, the Meredith Music Festival, there's

I never really I went to it the first year I don't think I've been since but there's an outdoor cinema where I once watched Pumping Iron with Arnold Schwarzenegger Oh cool Is there cinema at Meredith?

There used to be at least That's fun They had one at Splendor and I never went Idiot So I can't think maybe What film should Marja watch They are actually screening films That aren't out in cinemas yet

Oh You gotta remember this is a fancy festival. And are they introduced by the stars? Yes. Yes. These are like first cuts and Leonardo DiCaprio is saying stuff like, hey just let it, we'd love to know your feedback. Yeah. This is a sort of a rough cut. These are actually today's rushes. Come up and chat to me personally afterwards. Or like it gets to the end. You go, sorry, we haven't shot this scene yet. So I'm going to do it with a few volunteers. So I'll be me.

You want to come up, you can play Kate Winslet over here. And here we go. Yeah, great. Kate's in the back room going, No, no, no, no, no. We got Marja, Maya, here. Who's very versatile. So versatile. In the acting space. So, did you go with Marja or Maya?

Could be a soft J. Could be Marja, Maya, Maha. Not sure. But Licka Guard, more confident with that. Lickie guard, yeah, it's similar to, you know, Licky Lee. Yes. Same spelling of the first time, I think, L-Y-K-K-E. Fun fact.

It is fun. Licky Lee's not Danish. I'll jump in here. Boring. Oh no. Where's Licky from? Swedish. While you look up that I will move on to our next fantastic supporter who is from Virginia in the United States.

It is Logan Acker. Logan Acker. From Salem, Virginia. A special sort of futuristic. massage. Oh, yeah. After a long, hard day. Of partying.

Of partying. Yeah, but they've got this new technology. What does it? Get under your skin type of thing? Yeah. And it's like it glows red. Yeah. Oh.

But it's very relaxed. It feels warm. It's like warm inside of you. Yeah. That's cool. And you suddenly forgive your dad. Wow. That's powerful.

Yeah, yeah. It's not just for muscles. It's also for brains. That's cool. Jess, you're going to have a go? Is it my turn? No, I mean, you're going to have it going to... Fixing my brains all?

Yeah. Why? Just don't forgive your dad. Too far gone. Hello if you're listening, John. From Griffith in the Australian Capital Territory. Big shout out to Anne White. And White.

What about Anne White? They take you into a tent and they show you a new colour. Whoa. Like one that... That does feel, to me, that does seem like the kind of thing that rich people are doing. It's like, it's not even like a new shade. It's literally a new colour. You can't even imagine what it is.

But when you see it, you go, I've never seen anything like that. We're not letting everyone else see this and we probably never will. Is everyone seeing the same colour? Or does everybody see a different new colour? How many colours can they come out? No, there's one colour and you'll come out and you go, that was worth it. Did you see the colour? Did you see the colour?

How do you describe it? Wow. Wow. Well, it's hard to. How do they even build it? They've even named it and white. Oh, right. Is that misleading?

Yeah. Yeah, you go, what? It's got to be similar to white. It's not. It's unlike, I can't describe it to you. It's amazing. Wow. Makes you feel something.

What? Tell me, like, if you're merging two of the primary colors together, which two are you merging. You can't get it. Really? It's a fourth primary color. What are you making? Yeah.

Fourth primary. That's going to change. Exactly. Seriously, this is alien technology. Holy shit. Wow. That's exciting. And terrifying.

Anne, let us know. If you can describe it to us, that would, I mean, it sounds like it's impossible to do, but. And have a go. May I thank some people as well? Pleasy. I would love to thank. Pleasy. From Houston, Texas.

A lot of Texans today. Yeah. I love it. I'd love to thank Heather Ringman. Heather is in the custom fragrance tent, son. Yes. Make you. smell.

Yeah. It's funny. My mum used to call farting, making smells. Who made a smell? Yeah. What a positive spin that is. Hey, look at you kids, creating things. That's nice.

Look at you making smells. When I was in primary school in prep, so first year, it was, our family would say, Pops. Yeah. Who's done Pops? Pops is good. Fluff. Fluff.

Fluff. Who fluffed up? My dad would say, who's dropped your guts. Which is a perfect. It's very visceral. Pick them up. Pick up your guts. Who dropped their guts over here?

But if you wanted, like, if you wanted to in this tent, you can make a smell of someone dropping their guts. Absolutely. You can make anything in your life. But ideally, more positive smells, right? Yeah. But, you know, it's whatever's positive to you. That's true. You've probably worked through a few things in that massass place.

You've got some smells you need to get out. Uh-oh. It's happening I'll enjoy that one over there, aren't you? Sometimes I just think, why do you talk, Jess? Why? That's what you do best. It's my job.

Okay, thank you, Heather. I would also love to thank from Göttenberg. Oh, now we're over to Sweden. I would love to thank Adam Norman. Adam Norman. Adam Norman. I love that. What about, okay, it's paint your own Picasso.

Yes. But it's actual Picasso. It's worth, oh, wait, what? So you come in, like, they bring in a Picasso and you get to paint over it if you want. You get to add to it. So it's like a co-lab between you. I'd put a dick on it. And Pupple O P. That's amazing.

I would definitely put a dick on it. Would you put it a dick in the, on the crotch? Nah. So what if it's a fruit bowl of fruit? Put a dick on it. Put a dick on it. But a dick on it. So you walk into a tent and they go, this is worth $80 million.

Dick! And they hand you a brush and go, go for it, son. Yes, this is all the sort of stuff I picture rich people doing. It's like, hey, you can destroy stuff. Getting your own dolphin wasn't good enough for you. No, I just don't picture. I think rich people normally care too much for dolphins to be that cruel. But they don't give a shit about Pablo Picasso.

Yeah, fuck Pablo Picasso. Paint your own Picasso. Paint your own Picasso. great. Adam is actually a very good artist. Yeah, thank goodness. The dick is very life. It's a beautiful.

You really go, what's that? Is that a photograph? You go, what? Why is it this cubist image with all sorts of stuff going on? There's a nose and an ear on the same part of the body. And then there's also like a life, like a life size, but also very well painted dick. Is that Dick 3D?

No, the shadowing is just that good. Wow. Yeah, Adam's very talented. He's done it again. Has someone put their dick through this painting? Someone's standing by that painting with their dick through it? It's fine if they are, but I'm just, oh, no, it is just that accurate. So well done, Adam, you big purve.

And finally, is that finally, yeah, finally for me, I would love to thank from Summerland. Oh, that sounds like a beautiful spot. Gorgeous. Love to thank Joel Trumblay. Jol Trumbly. Ah, we know another Canadian. man named Trombly. Al's there.

So it's just funny to leave your hanging there every second. Who? Sorry? I don't believe I do. So what's Joel being up to? I think Joel is... Oh! Oh! Okay, no, you probably... No, nothing that made me make that sound.

Joel is riding a dinosaur. Oh. Wow, dinosaur rides. They brought one back. They bring that. Okay, that's a story. was picturing plotty. Is this, is this what we're talking a big one or a little one?

It's a big dinosaur. Whoa. They've brought it back. They've essentially created Jurassic Park. You can have up to 10 people on the back of this dinosaur. There's like a little dining setting set out. If you pay more, can you do it with a celebrity? Yeah.

Like you look up Selena Gomez. It's hanging out with you or something. On a dinosaur. Yeah. Yeah, you're doing it with a celebrity on the back of a dinosaur. Nothing hotter than that. I've always wanted to do it on the back of the dinosaur. Look, I meant just there hanging, also on the dinosaur.

dinosaur, but if you want to take it to the next level. Hey, whatever happens happens. Hey, Dave, how many celebrities have you done it with? Oh, we know the answer to that. There's none. You're virgin. All right. Whatever happens on a dinosaur stays on a dinosaur.

That's all I say. Thank you. Otherwise, I don't want to kiss and tell. What happened between me? I came on the back of that dinosaur and the cum still up there. All right, edit that bit out, please. No. That was a lot.

That was a lot. I really hope most people have stopped listening by now. I have. That's everyone we're thinking there. The last thing we're saying, going to do is thank a few people for being long-term supporters, triptych club members. So to get involved in this is, all you have to do is be a legend who supports it on the shoutout level or above for three straight years.

Amazing. And how are we doing it this week? We've been sharing it around a bit lately. I've enjoyed sharing it around, but I'm... We'll go back to the classic? No, no, no, not at all. I know for sure that I'll be bad at trying to hype people up. Oh, but it doesn't, that's great, honestly.

And then I'll hype you up if you like. Yeah, okay. I'll give it a go. So I'll read them out. How many are there? If there's lots, I don't want to do it. There's not that. I don't think there's that many.

We could go one than the other if you like. You want to warm into it because it's your first time. Yeah, that'd be good. And then we'll hype each other up. Yeah, of course. Love that. So this episode comes out on the 19th of May. 2021. What a beautiful day.

Going down in history. So we've got one, two, three, four, five, six. Six. Three, eight. We can do that. Easy. So the TripTidge Club, it's like an exclusive place. Basically, it's like a very expensive bungalow on the beach. A villa right on the border.

We've also got a yacht. We make a lot of promises about this club. But we follow through in these promises. Yes, that's right. We book music. We have great food. We have great drinks every week. It changes. Yes, I'm standing on the door.

I've got the door list. I'll read out the names before Jess and Dave hype them up and then hype each other up. Jess, behind the bar, have you got a cocktail here? Or do you want me to do that thing as you're doing the hyping? No, that's whatever. I've got an idea. Great.

I had an idea for a drink before and I lost it. But food-wise, we've got an assortment of cheese sandwiches. And they're all in those shitty little polystyrene containers. could be fireball shots. Yes, and a lot of tequila. That's good. Yes, and they're very expensive. And we normally don't charge for drinks.

Yeah, but these ones are going to cost you a limb. They're very expensive. Yeah, we're going to rip your bloody arms off. I'm going to rip your bloody arms off. And Dave, you normally book a band. Anyone from the five-fessional line? It's every rapper that's appeared in the Fast and the Farrison movies. Whoa, Gin?

Headlined by Jim. You got gin? Gin. Fantastic. Hackai. Is it my birthday? I love gin. Yeah, gin.

Fuck, are you about to do a gin shot with gin? Wow. A shot of gin, first of all, is cooked. I know. Oh, my God. You are fucked. You're onto the shots of gin. Shodding botanicals.

Oh, my goodness. So, the first cab off the rank got in contact with me today saying that they've been on supporting us for well over three years, but they, there was a bit of a clerical error at their end. And anyway, it's a real pleasure to welcome them in pushing towards a year after when they should have been, I think, about six months. Anyway, so you're ready to go? Yes. From Wichita in Kansas in the United States, it's Michael Derizzi. Oh, Michael Derrissie. What you're doing tonight? Coming into the club!

Yes. And then you hype Jess out. Yeah, great. We hype each other. Oh yeah. Hell yeah, Jess. Great hype in. Thank you.

I think you've added a new step of hype. Just keep the momentum going. I didn't get that one. Wichita, what you're doing tonight? Oh. Which are doing tonight. You don't have to get it. You just have to keep the flow.

Yep, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, that one was way up above. Now we've got to get down with these new ones. coming in at a much more time. Getting derizzi with it. Yes, yes, Dave, he did it. All right, now, from Melbourne.

Getting jiggie, derizzi. Getting derizy. Okay. Is that something? I thought it was like busy, getting busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Thank you. Yes.

Woo! From Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It's Georgia Robinson. Oh, here's to you, Georgia Robinson. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Good stuff. Oh, my God, I'm faint.

Don't worry. You'll get through it. We've had a few Scandinavians in today from Porson, Parson Morn. In Norway, it's Asmund Nordhagen. Oh, Norway, you're having a bad time. You're having a good time. Yes. From Brighton in state CO, Colorado, I reckon in the United States, Dominic Webster.

Well, you'll brighten up this party. From Werribee in Victoria Australia. It's Emily in Oxkowski. Emily, where's she been all my life, where it be? Where you be? I was thinking it was going to be. Yes, thank you. I thought it was going to be a man.

I was going to say where he be. Yeah. But then I had to sort of backtrack. But where he be? Where he been? From Birmingham in Great Britain, it's Troy Swoffer. Oh, Troy Swoffer. From where?

From Birmingham, Brummy in Great Britain. Birmingham up to see you. God, that's good. Hell yeah. At one point, Dave, hit the top of his drink bottle with his finger a few times. Yeah. All Edomond style, sort of. All right, that's it.

That's all our... Oh my goodness. Finish for the best. Berman up to see you. So welcome in Troy, Emmeline, Dominique, Asmund, Georgia and Michael. And yeah, if you want to get involved in any of that stuff, Patreon.com slash dugonpod or dogoompod.com. Follow us on the social media is dogo on pod on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Fantastic.

Our email address is do go on pod at gmail. com and yes. Yeah, I reckon that means. And yes. Michael Derizzi said that he sent an email while back to explain this thing and he didn't get a reply and I said, honestly, I'm really going to have a sharp word to Jess because she replies for all emails and one of you is a liar. And then I called him a liar in all caps and exclamation marks.

Great. I said, is you calling Jess a lot? Because I did respond with Invisible Ink. With magenta. So I fully can't see it. Yeah, it doesn't exist. But that brings us to the end of the episode. What a fun time we've had learning about the fire festival.

I can't wait till we have our own fire-esque festival when we do a live podcast on a barge in international waters. Yeah, that's right. Do you think we should get jar involved? Of course. Definitely. If only there was an app that we could book him through. Oh, well.

Just love to pace on on Instagram to reach out to another person on Instagram. Eventually we'll get in touch with Jha. We've got to get gin involved, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to listening to some of Jinn's work. Well, that is it for another week. Thank you so much. We're closing on 300 episodes, so hopefully we'll be doing something for that. Stay tuned.

Let us sizzle there for those that listen right to the end. Thank you so much. We'll be back next week with another episode, but until then I'll say thank you. and goodbye. Later. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there.

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