When it comes to documentaries, the Fyre Festival was the perfect subject. Between each scandal and crime, the festival was full to the brim with captivating content. This fact is best to solidify in the existence of not one, but two documentaries about the catastrophic failure of a music festival. Hulu and Netflix each released their own version of the documentary at almost the same time.
The beauty of these documentaries is that they compliment each other so well. While Netflix took a serious stance on the financial scam, Hulu took a more humorous evaluation of the festival.
The best way to to get the full experience of the Fyre Festival is to start by watching the Netflix documentary followed by the Hulu documentary. This sets you up with an understanding of the severity of the scam.
Netflix gives you all the information you need about the event, with a small taste of Billy McFarland's past. It builds a picture of the intensity from the inside of the operation. Using testimony from individuals involved with the production, the documentary worked to focus on the event as a failure rather than the cultural consequences of the festival. However, the documentary was produced by the social media team for the festival.
Hulu, on the other hand, went back through McFarland's past ventures to showcase a cycle of fraud and lies. With a sense of humor and a more thorough examination of the impacts and process of the festival, Hulu produced a documentary with less focus on the finances (compared to Netflix) and more analyzation of how the Fyre utilized social media.
By starting with Netflix, you start off with a thorough understanding of the logistics of the festival. This sets you up for a better experience with Hulu, that (personally) is the better documentary. The cultural failure that is Fyre Festival is the perfect event to learn about through documentary, but the best experience involves a combination of both documentaries played in that specific order: Netflix than Hulu.
It's nothing like Coachella 2019, but it's an experience you get for much less than a ticket to Fyre Festival.
