Recently, Netflix and Hulu both put out documentaries discussing the Fyre Festival, a music festival that was marketed to be the next Coachella but was ultimately a huge flop. The festival – if one can even refer to the event as such – turned out to be a huge scam. Billy McFarland, the entrepreneur behind the festival, is now in prison. He was sentenced to six years for committing fraud and falsifying investment documents.

There were a few major differences between the two films, the most glaring one being that Hulu managed to get an interview with Billy McFarland. On paper, McFarland’s presence would seem to give Hulu the edge over Netflix. Speaking strictly on quality, Netflix created the better documentary that gave us the story in chronological order in an easy-to-follow and well-produced format.

Netflix’s “FYRE: The Greatest Party that Never Happened” provided interviews from people who worked directly with McFarland on the Fyre project in both the United States and the Bahamas. Every interviewee had a reason for being in the film.

On the other hand, Hulu’s “FYRE FRAUD” contained interviews that felt unnecessary. For instance, there were three influencers introduced solely to explain to the audience what an “influencer” was. This information could have been communicated in one shot rather than dragged out for minutes.

Also, Netflix did not rely on gimmicks to differentiate between content. Hulu put an old-school looking filter over footage that was from news stations and other platforms, which took away from the message.

The Hulu documentary simply felt unorganized. It jumped around the timeline of the festival and seemed to run on the assumption that the audience knew what had happened. Frankly, if I had not watched the Netflix documentary first, I would have been very confused as to what happened at the festival.

The audience does not get to see the events of the festival until the last thirty minutes when “FYRE FRAUD” suddenly took a turn. The first portion came off as sympathizing, as if the audience was supposed to develop pity for McFarland and an understanding of his goals.

In the second half, the interviewer questions whether Billy is a liar followed by quick cuts of him shouting in a mechanical voice that he was lying and that it was a scam, to another cut of his interview where he would say otherwise.

It felt random and out of place in a documentary that spent so long discussing his childhood and his former company. There was even an interview with his girlfriend talking about their relationship. His girlfriend had nothing to do with the festival and was not in his life until after the event.

Hulu was on a deadline and rushed to get a documentary out to rival Netflix. While they were successful in dropping it on time, it was not up to the same standard as the documentary Netflix made. “FYRE: The Greatest Party that Never Happened” and “FYRE FRAUD” are both currently streaming on Netflix and Hulu respectively.