Here is what I would have done:
Once I found out how spartan it would be, I’d order in 1000 shovels, some bags of lime, surplus army tents, water, 100lb bags of rice, and cooking pans. Then print up some flyers about how their current living conditions were better than so many billions world wide. Give the VIP guests guns, as they could act as the local warlords, able to control the resources if desired.
Keep the musical guests, so they could still have some boss beats to go with their rice balls and trench latrines.
Spin the whole thing as a guerilla marketing campaign for poverty awareness. You probably would still have pissed off people, but then the blame shifts to the whiny rich kids would couldn’t rough it for a few day, in an effort to bring them some perspective and raise awareness.
