Billy McFarland made comeback in 2025 with PHNX, an island-style music festival held on a Caribbean island in early December after nearly a decade of infamy, including serving time for the disastrous Fyre Festival. McFarland and his team promoted PHNX as a redemption-style “phoenix rising from the ashes” event: a tightly controlled, small-scale festival (around 300–400 attendees and staff by most counts) with real performances.
The headlining night of PHNX featured live performances from legitimate artists such as French Montana and others, giving the event at least some musical credibility. According to Consequence, the relatively small scale helped: about 300 people (attendees, artists, and staff combined) managed to “pull together to overcome last-minute logistical challenges,” and the end result, by his account, was “awesome.”
PHNX was live-streamed (for a modest fee), experiments with infrastructure were completed (stages, accommodations), and there was apparently no mass collapse of the venue or abandonment mid-event — a far cry from the 2017 chaos. Attendance reportedly numbered only in the hundreds (not thousands). Organizers even encouraged locals to show up for free to bulk up the crowd. Approximately 100 concurrent viewers watched the livestream, indicating limited broad interest. There were technical issues: at least two temporary power outages during the performances. Considering artist pay, logistics, travel, venue setup, and other overheads — the small turnout suggests McFarland or his backers likely took a substantial financial loss.
The first time he’s delivered an event with real artists and performances. That could be enough, for some, to call it a “comeback.” PHNX serves as a reminder that scale and hype don’t guarantee success. There may be success for a small, tightly managed festival – but it offers a very different experience than the once-promised “luxury, influence-driven extravaganza”.
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