$12,000 luxury festival turns out to be chaos for guests

This weekend was supposed to be the launch of Fyre Festival, a self-described "cultural moment" taking place in Exumas, Bahamas. The luxury festivals cost attendees anywhere from $450 to $12,000.

For such a high cost, attendees were expecting chartered flights from Miami, villa accommodations, catered food and music from artists like Major Lazer, Blink-182 and Disclosure.

What festivalgoers actually found, however, was a disaster.

When they arrived they found minimal to no staff members. There was disorganization -- and attendees did not receive their luggage until nightfall -- and the "villas" were actually hazard tents. Many attendees took to social media to share their experience:

That's not all. There were reports of feral dogs around, and the "catered" food was slices of bread and cheese:

Check out more photos from disgruntled guests

Acts like Blink-182 backed out of the fest. To top it all off, the U.S. Embassy had to arrive to bring people back to Miami. Many have filled out forms for refunds -- but whether they are received is unknown as of now. The fest was called off.

A Twitter account called @FyreFestivalFraud claims that the fest was always a scam and perpetuated by influencers hyping it up in order to sell expensive tickets:

Organizers, including rapper Ja Rule, have yet to comment. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism released a statement early Friday:

Ministry representatives are on site to help attendees. They said, "We are extremely disappointed in the way the events unfolded yesterday. We offer a heartfelt apology to all who traveled to our country for this event."

Update: Fyre Festival's website now redirects to a statement:

Fyre Festival set out to provide a once-in-a-lifetime musical experience on the Islands of the Exumas.

Due to circumstances out of our control, the physical infrastructure was not in place on time and we are unable to fulfill on that vision safely and enjoyably for our guests. At this time, we are working tirelessly to get flights scheduled and get everyone off of Great Exuma and home safely as quickly as we can. We ask that guests currently on-island do not make their own arrangements to get to the airport as we are coordinating those plans. We are working to place everyone on complimentary charters back to Miami today; this process has commenced and the safety and comfort of our guests is our top priority.

The festival is being postponed until we can further assess if and when we are able to create the high- quality experience we envisioned.

We ask for everyone's patience and cooperation during this difficult time as we work as quickly and safely as we can to remedy this unforeseeable situation. We will continue to provide regular updates via email to our guests and via our official social media channels as they become available.

-The Fyre Festival Team