Health and safety is a major part of performing live and we all must understand what risks we can prevent
Tripping hazard – loose cables on the floor someone will trip themselves over if they are not careful of their surrounding area
Crowd control – mosh pits, crowd surfing, riots,
Hight risk – working in high places, risk of falling in high places
Collapsing – stage collapsing due to a high amount of wind or the stage not being properly secured in place
Electrical hazard- Exposed wires
Hearing loss – exposed to a high volume, the limit for a concert is 107db, the same amount of volume as a chainsaw or jackhammer.
Case Study: Fyre Festival 2017
Fyre Festival was being planned by rapper Ja Rule and entrepreneur Billy McFarland. Fyre Festival was advertised in the fall of 2016. Models, influencers, and celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski were contracted to endorse their Fyre booking app.
Fyre Festival was a super-luxurious, gated experience on Pablo Escobar’s previous private island in the Bahamas, Fyre Cay. The event was marketed as a one-in-a-lifetime experience. The festival’s main product was a VIP experience endowed by celebrities and endorsed by such influencers as Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid, a secluded island venue, plus luxurious accommodations, gourmet meals, elite musical acts like Major Lazer and Blink-182, yacht affairs, beach activities, networking and socialization opportunities with celebrities, influencers, and models, creating the atmosphere of a highly selective social gathering.
Before guests arrived on the island at Fyre Festival, Many endured flight delays as part of the disorganized travel arrangements. Fyre Festival had contracted luxury flights from Miami to the Exumas in the Bahamas. Even before guests arrived on the island, however, mismanagement and logistical issues were reported with delayed flights from Miami.
The delays were an added cause for the growing frustrations as many attendees had already invested thousands of dollars for a VIP experience. Their disappointment was compounded further on arrival when they saw the festival was nothing as advertised. Thus, the travel chaos started even before they made it to the flopped event.
In the advertising of the Fyre Festival, they called ‘Fyre Cay’ the location where the event would be held. But ‘Fyre Cay’ does not exist; actually, it is Norman’s Cay, owned by George Jung and not Pablo Escobar. The participants were taken to the Exumas, not a secluded island as advertised and inhabited by over 7,000, unlike the secluded heaven promised.
Upon arrival, visitors were transported to the site in yellow school buses and shortly found themselves beholding their luxurious lodgings.
Festival guests at the Fyre Festival were given disaster relief tents instead of the luxury villas they were promised. They were plain white geodesic tents that were traditionally used for emergency shelter, with thin mattresses inside. The conditions were far short of the deluxe camping accommodations advertised in the promotion, and this helped to stir up even more anger and contributed to the overall chaos of the event. Participants also weren’t assigned tents as promised, leading to a wild free-for-all as attendees rushed to grab the first available tent.
As the tensions were mounting due to the shortage of food, certain employees began to hand out complimentary tequila, adding to the chaos in the scenario.
After waiting for several hours, the consumers were disappointed with the poor-quality meals offered at Fyre Festival. Instead of the quality meals they were looking for, they received plain and unpleasant food. One particularly vivid memory was a plain cheese sandwich consumed out of a Styrofoam cup and accompanied by an itty-bitty side salad. This unimpressive meal also embodied the general failure of the festival and was widely shared on social media, stoking public anger. That was the demise of the Fyre Festival.
As conditions deteriorated from bad to worse, numerous visitors attempted to leave, and over 70 flights were cancelled or postponed. Frustrated and stuck, some visitors were even forced to sleep at the airport. Eventually, the U.S. government stepped in to aid in evacuating the stranded people on the island.
Later, the festival branched into a broader cultural phenomenon as documentaries and articles dissected the events. It highlighted the dangers of promoting high-end events and the dangers of not delivering on consumer promises.
Fyre Festival serves as an eye-opener for the event planning industry. It emphasizes the need for transparency, effective communication, and careful logistical planning. The demise of the festival illustrates the potential consequences of false advertising practices and the need for accountability in the era of influencer marketing. It has triggered discussions on ethical marketing and event management standards that revolve around the need to reconcile promises made through marketing with actual experiences.
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). The Failure of Fyre Festival. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBPg5ftCMv8&ab_channel=InternetHistorian.
Netflix.com. (2018). FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened. [online] Available at: https://www.netflix.com/watch/81035279?trackId=268410292&tctx=0%2C0%2C5ae7c8f8-5a5a-47d7-9e35-da7b1c3daba2-247934542%2C5ae7c8f8-5a5a-47d7-9e35-da7b1c3daba2-247934542%7C2%2Cunknown%2C%2C%2CtitlesResults%2C81035279%2CVideo%3A81035279%2CminiDpPlayButton [Accessed 1 Jun. 2025].