We survived Fyre Festival…and didn’t hate it.
By: Tara Conlin
Tags: Travel, Festivals, Fyre Festival, Bahamas, Fyre

Let’s all lay with this Iguana in the middle of us.

PRIVATE BEACH YO.

Then our last stop was to one of his friends bars/restaurants/houses? Really not sure what it was, but the guy was fantastic, made us bomb ass wings, local cocktails and we got some fresh fried fish, it was DIVINE.

#6: Back to reality

5:30pm: BM dropped us back off at home base where there were now several hundred people. Hangovers were setting in and sunburns were starting to show. We enjoyed the hell out of those 7 hours, but we were ready to get to our tents. We had some food (plates of rice) and followed the crowds out to the parking lot to begin loading the buses.

#7: Loading Time

7:00pm: This was the moment where we started to notice the ones keeping their cool vs the ones who started to panic. The divide was officially happening. Girls were crying, clapping their hands saying “Get [clap] me [clap] out [clap] of [clap] here [clap] I’ve [clap] been [clap] here [clap] forever [clap],” people were cutting each other in line, pushing etc, it was dumb. People also threatened to give them one star on Yelp. Straight up hilarious.

The workers were doing the best they could trying to keep everyone calm and load the buses. We finally made our way to the front, piled in a bus, and we were taken to the site.

Bizarre/Awkward Fact: While all the chaos of the bus line was in full force, there was a straight up ceremony with the Mayor taking place right next to us. It appeared to be a grand opening of a new house development behind the restaurant. There were about 20 people under a little tent and they were cutting a blue ribbon. Meanwhile, there’s a line of hundreds of drunk slob kabobs standing behind and observing. Awkwardness USA.

#8: The Site

7:15pm: Well, I mean it was…there…? There was a stage, there were tents, a few bars set up, things were happening. However none of us had our Fyre bands (which held all of our “funds” for the weekend), so they told us to wait in line to receive our bands and tent assignments. This is when the true chaos began.

#9: Mad dash for a tent

7:30pm: Four of the girls ventured out to claim our tents, it was scary out there. It was dark, there were rows and rows of tents and you just had to rush and find one that wasn’t claimed yet. A majority of the tents were also soaking wet and the carpet had puddles, we liked to refer to them as “tent lakes,” a pretty cool feature we thought.

But we did finally find two tents remotely close together and decided to move twin beds from other tents so we had 4 beds in each one. It was IKEA furniture, blankets, etc. Mission accomplished…and it was JUST like the luxury 8 person tent with 4 king beds that we bought into!

#10: Luggage Claim?

8pm: Well, this was more of a freight truck on top of a dirt hill next to some porta potties with luggage everywhere, but we luckily found all of our bags with some help from our trusty iPhone flashlights. This is also when we started to notice all of the divas with their luggage saying “there’s a flight out tonight, let’s get the hell out of here.” K BYYYYEEEEEE!

#11: Dinner

8:30pm: We headed over to the “food court” to grab some much needed food and water. Which, let’s be clear people, they had plenty of both. We had BBQ chicken, pasta, salad, apples and a dinner roll, we were well fed and hydrated. Far from celebrity chef status, but there wasn’t a cheese sandwich in sight.

#12: Bedtime

Lights out, I mean not literally because there were no lights in the tents, but we showered, lit a candle to bring the relaxing vibes and called it a night. Time to start fresh tomorrow with an open heart and accept the fact this luxury festival was now an island camping trip…which we were actually fine with.

DAY 2: FRIDAY (4/28)

#13: New day, new morning, new us:

8am: We woke up dying of heat and it took us about 15 minutes to even open our eyes in those white ass tents, but we survived the night! We tidied up, moved our toiletries onto our IKEA shelfs, stocked up on several bags of towels from the ever so inviting cardboard boxes and we were ready to take the festival by storm.

THE TOWEL CHECK! COME ONE COME ALL AND GET YOUR TOWELS!

We got into the mindset that this is now a camping trip in the Bahamas, easy enough. Time to finally see the site during the day, here’s what we encountered on our walk to the “food court.”