Major Outdoor Music Festival Announced for Bocas del Toro May 30-June 2, 2025

By now many of us have seen a docuseries chronicling the debacle that was “Fyre Festival”, the would-be luxury music festival in the Bahamas that ended in disaster, despair and the detainment of the event organizer.

Fresh out of prison in 2022, it didn’t take long for founder Billy McFarland to declare that Fyre Festival 2 was being planned for Mexico in 2025—this time, for real.

A Grand Announcement with No Grounding

“Fyre 2 is a three-day escape to the Mexican Caribbean where you’ll explore by day alongside your favorite talent and come together at night to celebrate with music,” announced McFarland in a February 24 news release on his X account.

However local tourism representatives from the Mexican Caribbean beach quickly fired back, claiming they had no knowledge of the festival which was already slated for three months’ time and selling tickets ranging between $1,400 to $1.1 million.

“We have no knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it,” said Edgar Gasca, Director General of Economic Development and Tourism of Isla Mujeres, in an interview with the Guardian on February 27. “For us, this is an event that does not exist:”

With negative publicity spreading among Mexican authorities, every attempt to secure permitting and sign contracts with local service providers ended in a roadblock. It was time to spark up the old drawing board for this Fyre Man.

A New Venue Found in an Unlikely Place

Things took a dramatic turn when a close friend of McFarlane’s sent him an Instagram reel from The Bocas Breeze, a small but mighty digital publication in Bocas del Toro, Panama. The reel told the story of Joe Brown, a Panamanian musician better known as “Calypso Joe,” locally famous for working at the airport and greeting incoming passengers with island music as they deboarded and waited for drug dogs to cease sniffing their belonging

On March 2, The Bocas Breeze reported that Calypso Joe had been given the directive to leave his guitar at home and focus more on his janitorial skills to which he swiftly replied “I quit!” He picked up his instrument in question and headed to his favorite restaurants to do what he loves: entertain people with that sweet calypso music.

“This guy should play at Fyre Festival” McFarland’s bikini-clad partner joked to him. “Maybe we should do the festival there…” he replied.

A Buoyant New Concept is Making a Splash

Determined to deliver on a music festival somewhere in the Caribbean, he started researching and quickly took a liking to Bocas del Toro.

“I immediately noticed a tropical canvas of beautiful nature to exploit. There is a plethora of inlets, cays, beaches, jungles, and other sandy surfaces to bring massive amounts of waste to and exploit the local economy.”

“It’s Perfect.”

McFarland learned that the most common form of transportation between islands is the “lancha” boat, and there was a surplus of lanchas in the area. With the prowess and adaptability of a CEO, he decided to pitch the groundbreaking idea of floating accommodations aboard “lanchas” instead of the traditional, expensive, glamping-style beach huts.

“This way we don’t have to pay any local hotels or AirBNBs, and everybody gets their own private accommodation.”

“It’s like a mobile home, or a motorcycle with more room. Imagine floating on the water in your own hotel room, where you can keep your belongings with you right above the water.”

This would allow the musical stages to be set up at different points in the archipelago, and allow all of the festival goers a way to escape law enforcement when the events are inevitably shut down throughout the week.

“It’s like a hide and go seek festival, or pac-man concept” the brilliant CEO stated. “This will give us the adaptability we need.”

“Guests will have up to four flat benches to sleep four guests, complete with a covered awning to keep out any rain that might come down.” he explained.

Outsourcing the “Waste” in “Wasted”

The first Fyre Festival was plagued with food and beverage problems due to the logistical issues associated with island festivals. But McFarland believes that he has found the solution in Bocas del Toro.

“Everything at this festival is BYOB, and the local beer companies, Panama and Balboa, have already agreed to triple their prices for the weekend.”

McFarland is aware that the majority of Bocas del Toro’s new constructions and businesses are grocery stores – and the bricks continued to fall into place for the businessman’s plans.

“This means I don’t have to provide food and drink, which was a huge problem at our first Fyre Fest.”

“Due to the overwhelming amount of grocery stores, the festival goers can purchase their own bags of Cheetos, Gatorade, sugary cakes, crackers and donuts, plastic bags of plantain chips, cigarettes, and lukewarm domestic beers to bring into their floating accommodations during the festival.”

The festival’s waste management plan is already raising eyebrows. McFarland interfaced with sustainability consultant Hector Pineda of Pineda Solutions Co. and to the uninformed, his takeaway from their Zoom call might seem counterintuitive: “the more single-use products that can be sold and brought out into nature, the better.”

In order to incentivize the festival goers to hold onto their Cheetos and Oreos wrappers throughout the weekend, instead of throwing them into the ocean (or plastic bags that likely end up in landfills or in the ocean themselves), McFarland had another great idea to solve this trash problem.

“For the last day of the festival, we have already scouted out a remote cave, complete with a waterfall, to set up the last and final stage for the weekend. We are instructing all guests to bring their bags of trash with them to this venue.”

“We are going to call it the ‘Bassura Bass-ment’” – where we hope to have Bass-heavy acts like Skrillex and trashbag-clad pop stars like Missy Elliott collaborate and encourage everyone to party alongside their trash, in the cave, and ultimately leave the trash behind for the waterfalls and caymans to deal with – far from the mainland and out of sight of authorities.

“This gives the waste a perfect remote place to decompose for however long that takes” McFarland mused.

Planning and Logistics

Diving into The Bocas Breeze archives to better understand the community, the Fyre Festival 2 team found evidence of other outdoor music festivals recently held in the area, fueling their optimism for their latest vision.

The organizers are already in touch with the privately owned lancha “colectivos” and settled on a price of $5,700 per night, per lancha, with 98% to be paid to the festival for administration fees and 2% to the boteros, for use of their boats overnight.

This results in over $100 per 24 hour period for each boat driver, which is a huge win in the eyes of McFarland. Nobody else in the archipelago is expected to see any profit from the event.

The boteros will be responsible for their own gasoline purchases and there is no guarantee that there will be enough gasoline to “fuel” the Fyre over the weekend, but those logistics will not be on McFarland’s plate.

No Fire, Just Fyre

The highly pressurized cockroach spray that is commonly used in Bocas del Toro’s “fire shows” is not going to be allowed at Fyre Fest, to protect the bats and other wildlife inside of the caves. McFarland says that there is a huge emphasis on safety at Fyre Fest 2, and that the possibility of trash lighting on fire is not going to be an option on his watch.

McFarland encourages the use of other insect repellents directly on the skin of the participants, to avoid unpleasant interactions with mosquitos and “chitras” that can be found in Bocas del Toro.

“Good Call” someone said in the background of this interview.

The Lineup and a Shocking Revelation

With 60 days left until the opening night of the festival, the only confirmed artists are Calypso Joe, Ja Rule and some German tourist. Skrillex has not responded to our request for comment.

When confronted about his tumultuous relationship with the New York rapper and estranged Fyre Festival 1 co-organizer, a tearful McFarland revealed his soft underbelly, gasping between sobs: “It was him… It was him…”

Alas it was Ja Rule who sent that fateful DM with the Calypso Joe airport story.

And just like that, history repeats itself—only this time, with luxury lancha tents and a calypso soundtrack, in Bocas del Toro.

Article by Richard Mentira. Originally published in The Papaya Entertainment Insider.

APRIL FOOLS! This article is a work of fiction created solely for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.