Belgium Just Had Its Own Fyre Festival With VestiVille

Belgium Just Had Its Own Fyre Festival With VestiVille

Remember Fyre Festival? Of course you remember Fyre Festival. It was an entertaining trainwreck of the highest order, the kind of slow-motion disaster that you just can’t look away from. And now Belgium has had its very own Fyre Festival in the form of VestiVille, another luxury festival experience — with Ja Rule! — that turned out to be anything but.

VestiVille was supposed to take place this weekend, 6/28-30, in Kristalpark, Lommel. Along with Ja Rule and Ashanti, the bill boasted appearances from Cardi B, Future, A$AP Rocky, Migos, Meek Mill, and more. A promotional video for the fest, featuring a terrible Cardi B impersonator, promised guests luxury VIP villas with private gardens and room service.

Instead, as Def Pen reports, concertgoers who arrived at the grounds were met with chaos and confusion. The morning of the festival, A$AP Rocky pulled out, citing “security and infrastructure concerns which relate to the production of the show.” Less than an hour later, the entire festival was cancelled.

“Today at 5:00 PM the mayor of Lommel decided to not let Vestiville start,” read a statement from the festival organizers. “After consultation with the security services and ASAP Rocky’s security officer, it was decided that the safety of the artist and the public could not be guaranteed.”

By the time the official cancellation announcement was made, festivalgoers had already been waiting for hours at the camp site. There was no food, water, or transportation available. Some attendees managed to get inside the locked fence of the festival grounds, where they helped themselves to beer, danced on the stage, and emptied fire extinguishers. Several hundred ticketholders ended up spending the night on the campgrounds before being shuttled to the train station by bus today.

VestiVille organizers tweeted that “the organisation will now consult with their official partners about a refund,” but it remains to be seen if that will end up happening. And The Brussels Times reports that three of the organizers have now been charged with fraud involving false invoices, forgery, money laundering, and abuse of trust as a result of complaints brought by unpaid suppliers.

Check out scenes from Fyre Fest 2.0 below.

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