Summer is synonymous with sun, light songs, tanning, beach, pool, sand, ice cream… And, of course, music festivals! It doesn’t matter if it’s 40 degrees in the shade: what matters is that you can be at a festival getting sprayed with water, dancing with strangers, listening to your favorite artists with the best songs that have accompanied you throughout your life. Does that sound like a perfect and unbeatable plan? Well, it’s time to give you a cold shower (not literally, as it’s appreciated at this time of year) with 3 absolutely incredible Netflix documentaries about festivals that went wrong. If you decide to buy a ticket to another one afterward, that’s up to you.
Fyre: the most exclusive party that never happened
April 28, 2017, was destined to be marked in golden letters in the history of the influencer world. Everyone – or at least everyone who was someone on social media – was called to attend the Fyre Festival, which was to take place in Great Exuma, an island in the Bahamas that could accommodate about 5,000 people. What was the problem? Billy McFarland, the director and creator of the festival, was deceiving everyone: neither the food was first class (there you have the cover photo to verify it), nor were the accommodations anything more than tents filled with mud, nor did the sanitation of the place guarantee that you wouldn’t return home with several infections.
The fiasco was showcased day by day by the festival attendees, mainly thanks to Instagram, and it remains in history as one of the most catastrophic mistakes ever. The Netflix documentary discusses the reasons for the failure, the society of the time (which is ours, to be honest), and how many were swayed by a video and a couple of recommendations from trusted influencers. You will laugh out loud, I promise. The other side of the coin is found in ‘Fyre Fraud’ by Max. It talks about the same thing, but not in the same way, and the combination of both documentaries will help you understand why it happened.
Total Fiasco: Woodstock 99
Yes, of course you know Woodstock, the legendary music festival of 1969 that has been featured in thousands of movies, series, and all kinds of books. Woodstock was freedom, love, everything that the hippie movement represented. However, 30 years later, society was very different from that: it was angrier, demanding to do whatever it wanted, it did not understand the concept of “peace and love” nor was it interested in it. And organizing another festival with the same name was nonsensical… which ended with three deaths and all kinds of crimes committed during the night of July 24, 1999.
Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, thought it would be a good idea to say “There are no rules here” to an audience that was already quite heated (and high). What was the result? They destroyed several buildings, committed acts of sexual violence, and no one cared at all about peace, love, and the hippie way of life. There were constant fights, a lot of people injured, and for some reason, no one thought of doing a Woodstock 2000. You can also find on Max the documentary Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, which can also be watched after the one on Netflix.
Total Fiasco: The Tragedy of the Astroworld Festival
It happened after the pandemic, but for some reason not everyone remembers that during the Astroworld festival in 2021, ten people died, and eleven more had heart attacks. Where? Well, during the concert of the creator of the event, rapper Travis Scott, who did not realize (or did not want to realize) that people were collapsing, shouting “Stop the show!” and helping each other as best they could to survive. Not everyone made it, but the Netflix documentary ends on a positive note, at least: from death came an everlasting friendship. Little comfort, though. Ah! Astroworld, obviously, never returned to be held, especially after Scott’s pathetic apologies. Netflix, can we never stop having documentaries about festivals that went wrong? Please and thank you.