By Ava Turnquest

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

AMERICAN organisers flew into The Bahamas and conducted their affairs like “spoilt kids” with an aging celebrity in tow, flouting regulations in their bid to stage the ill-fated Fyre Festival cheaply, according to a former Bahamian consultant on the project.

Rodney Burrows, a veteran high-end developer in the Exuma Cays, yesterday accused the government of selling out the country by allowing such a poorly planned event to take root, despite clear warning signs.

Mr Burrows said the Ministry of Tourism was closely involved with the project on the ground in Exuma, as well as “all of local government”.

“They wasted these people money on models ... to get this thing through and just private jets and all that stuff, the life. They didn’t spend any of the money on the infrastructure because we gave a price, and our price was around $5m to do the infrastructure. That would have put in for the security, for all the infrastructure to do deal with the sewer, that was to prepare the grounds for the tents.

“They had a very nice plan that they put forward but they didn’t do their plan.”

US organisers Billy McFarland, rapper Ja Rule and Fyre Media Inc are facing multi-million dollar lawsuits filed in the wake of the fiasco on Exuma in late April when inadequate planning and facilities led performers to bow out and organisers to cancel the much-hyped event, stranding customers. Ticket packages ranging from $1,200 to over $100,000 promised five-star dining and luxury accommodations with headline performers including Blink-182, Migos and Major Lazer.

But instead of putting Exuma on the map as the next big destination music experience, Fyre Festival succeeded only in sparking outrage and recriminations.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Burrows expressed disgust over the disastrous outcome - which he argued did not reflect The Bahamas’ production capacity but repeated failure of organisers to heed the advice of local professionals.

“The biggest problem with this was that the tickets were sold before they had a location,” Mr Burrows said, “that was the mad rush. They already had the money in their hand and they started to mess with the money. We flew to Staniel Cay on a private jet, they flew to Norman’s Cay on a private jet with models.

“They were wasting the money,” he said, “it was like a rap movie. Young white boy like rap and he’s with Ja Rule, an old washed up rapper - that’s exactly what I saw.”

Mr Burrows recalled an “embarrassing” encounter at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where he was flown out for a meeting and arrived to find Ja Rule flashing fistfuls of cash.

“They were down in the cays partying with the models. When we walked into the yacht club here is Ja Rule with $1,500 in this hand, $1,500 in that hand, and he’s just showing the money out.

“I’ve worked in the Exuma Cays for over 25 years. I’ve worked with a lot of billionaires, and billionaires walk around with a pair of beach shorts on and a money clip. ‘This is embarrassing’, I said to the other guy, ‘this place is used to seeing some real money and everybody knows Ja Rule is worth about $5m’. He screwed up all his money; come on we have Google these days.”

Mr Burrows served as a project consultant from November to mid-February, when he said organisers severed ties after he delivered a complete costing of all materials needed to build the site. Mr Burrows said that organisers were initially adamant about using Saddleback Cay, off Norman’s Cay, with an expected crowd of 10,000.

“The first idea was they would buy the cay and bring people in on cruise ships. I told them they were crazy. These guys wanted to just pay their way through everything. They thought they could come into the Exuma Cays. One of them said by the time this concert is done no one would know they were there. And I said you got to be crazy, this is the playground of the rich, anything that happens here is going to be known.”

From Saddleback Cay, organisers then turned their sights to Black Point, which was the location on which Mr Burrows based his costing for all materials needed to execute the project.

“We were setting up for 5,000,” he said, “that meant setting up food, security, using water trucks to keep grounds wet so there’s not so much dust. You were building a site, we were bringing in three D8s (large track-type tractor), four payloaders, six dump trucks, sewer trucks, sewer barges, fuel trucks, utility trucks to do the servicing. They needed excavators, we needed a ramp for the barge to come into.

“When they saw how much it was we never got a call back.”

He added: “If you come to The Bahamas, use Bahamians. We should know how to build on our land, and professionals, not just anyone off the street. This guy (Billy) McFarland was listening to the last guy who talked to him with anything that he liked to hear.

“We went to Black Point and most of the meeting he was riding a Jet Ski. We saw him at the end when it was time to go, and you got millions of people’s money.

“I built Ocean Cay, Cistern Cay, Highbourne Cay, I’ve done nine of those islands. I could have seen the way they were handling the money and they didn’t really think this thing should cost this much.

“They just didn’t want to spend the money,” he said. “They were spending the money where they shouldn’t have been spending it and McFarland was making all the decisions. Ja Rule was just more there for the party.”

Mr Burrows said he later heard that the project was moved to Great Exuma, with no plan or professional local team. He said he also heavily discouraged organisers from using dates that clashed with the island’s regatta, and predicted the events that unfolded that weekend.

“You’re talking about putting on 20 more flights - George Town airport couldn’t handle that. The exact catastrophe that happened I told them was going to happen,” he said.

“They didn’t listen to me. The guy Billy McFarland, he was young, he was arrogant. When you didn’t say what he wanted to hear, all he would say is ‘oh man just fix it’. No you don’t just fix it, you do drawings, you do planning, and this is how things get done.”

Mr Burrows said he and other local professionals consistently offered feasible suggestions to execute the event, such as using the Hotel Encouragement Act to secure a bond for imported equipment.

He alleged that the organisers were able to get things done through officials on Exuma without proper procedure.

“They got the local officials up there to be pushed to approve them pushing down land like they shouldn’t have been doing,” he alleged. Mr Burrows was referring to the Coco Plum beach site, where it is visible that the land was cleared by a tractor.

Mr Burrows said: “If they had gotten approval, they could have gotten exemptions. That’s why all this equipment is sitting up there in George Town right now.”

Reflecting on the media firestorm, some of which paints the country in a negative light, he said: “It wasn’t like that. It was a bunch of spoilt American kids coming down here thinking they could push their money around and buy the government, buy everybody, and get it done. But they couldn’t get it done.”