Avant Gardner Faces Six Lawsuits Seeking a Combined Total of $100 Million
The company behind the iconic Brooklyn Mirage venue and the newest owners of the Electric Zoo festival are facing more than $100 million across six lawsuits, four of which relate directly to the 2023 edition of the festival. Avant Gardner, who purchased the festival and its previous owners Made Event for $15 million in July of 2022, is now looking at legal proceedings that could potentially hurt profits as the less busy winter season approaches.
The first class action lawsuit was filed in early September, where plaintiffs accuse organizers of intentionally delaying the cancelation of Day 1 in an effort to continue selling tickets to Avant Gardner after parties. While no specific dollar amount of damages sought by plaintiffs is cited in this first suit, the amount does “exceed the sum of $5,000,000.” The second class action lawsuit was filed just 3 days after the previous, and seeks roughly $10,000,000 according to the case docket entry made on September 18th.
“a nightmare endured by thousands of electronic music fans.”
Within a little more than a week from the second filing, Avant Gardner had its third lawsuit relating to the 2023 Electric Zoo festival filed. With class action suits starting to become a trend by this point in time, on September 22nd the collective total sought by plaintiffs in litigation climbs to more than $30 million. Most notably, the third suit goes on to accuse event security of soliciting bribes in exchange for moving people ahead of will call or entry lines, and even into VIP areas.
The latest class action lawsuit, which also seeks the most in damages, “no less than $75 million”, was filed just last Thursday. Plaintiffs in the fourth suit accuse Avant Gardner of hiring non-union contracts to decrease expenses while increasing profits.
The other two lawsuits previous lawsuits reference incidents at Avant Gardner’s home venue, the Brooklyn Mirage. Both filed in August, the two lawsuits (one filed just days before the Electric Zoo festival was set to take place) seeks a combined total of $10 million in damages.
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