“There will be no payroll in the short term.”

The world’s most deluded festival promoter, Billy McFarland, has told Fyre Festival employees that they won’t be getting paid, but that they are more than welcome to “stay and help out” in unpaid roles.

“After conferring with our counsel and all financial people, unfortunately we are not able to proceed with payroll,” said McFarland, in a conference call acquired by Vice News. “We’re not firing anyone, we’re just letting you know that there will be no payroll in the short term.”

The festival devolved into chaos at the end of last month when thousands of ticket holders – some of whom had paid up to $12,000 for a ticket – arrived for a luxury island getaway but found what some attendees likened to “refugee camp conditions”. The organizers – McFarland and Ja Rule – have since been hit with a number of massive lawsuits.

“I understand that this is not an ideal situation and this will likely cause a lot of you to resign, which we totally get and understand,” continued McFarland on the call. “The last thing I want to do is put anyone in a bad position.”

During the call, employees also asked why they weren’t being fired. “So you’re not going to lay us off, which would allow us to file for unemployment benefits?” asked one staff member. “You just are not going to pay us any more then, making us quit ourselves.”

“If you want to stick with us, we’d love to have you, and we’d love to work together and hunker down and get back to a place where everything resumes to business as usual,” McFarland said. He later added: “We’re not asking anybody to remain employed, we’re saying that we can no longer continue the payroll, so I understand if that means you are leaving the company. If people want to stay and help out, we’re of course willing to do that.”

Towards the end of the audio, another person asks: “Should we have any concern about the FBI?” McFarland replies by calling the issue “an individual thing.”

According to Vice, most employees quit over the weekend or on Monday. FACT has reached out to Fyre Media for comment.

Fyre’s latest actions will come as little surprise: the festival earlier this month threatened to sue people who had the nerve to live-tweet their experience.