The better question to ask here is what happened to the Electric Zoo? And we wish we could give a concrete answer. The reality is, this years festival fiasco was the result of the perfect storm of bad decisions, lack of planning, and a desire for more money by a greedy and growing New York entertainment brand. We're going to dive into the timeline and factors that produced the worst Electric Zoo in its event history.

Avant Gardner, the company who operates the beautiful New York ‘Brooklyn Mirage’ venue, acquired Made Events (and, in turn, acquired the Electric Zoo) in July of 2022 for $15 million. The company had already developed a reputation of overselling event tickets, dating back to at least 2021. In a deal made with the New York State Liquor Authority, the company was required to hire a independent monitor to observe its operations across its various venues. Data sourced from these observations by Jon Campbell, a reporter at WNYC and the Gothamist, shows ticket sales were regularly in excess of their maximum capacity:

Although this was shared more widely a few days after the festival concluded, it's still a relevant starting point for understanding just went wrong. It's clear, the new event organizers had a clear history of what appears to be intentionally overselling tickets above venue capacity, risking the safety of its customers for bottom line profits.

On Friday, September 1st, which was suppose to mark Day 1 of the Electric Zoo's 3 day weekend, organizers canceled the event via a social media post just 3 hours before doors were set to open that same day due to ‘global supply chain disruptions.”, The statement reads:

This was particularly suspicious given the aggressive marketing tactics the event organizers had engaged in months in advance leading up to the very day of the event. Why would New York's City premier festival cancel Day 1 of what was supposed to be their most premier festival experience since its inception? Around this time on Friday, photos began to circulate of active construction, especially regarding the EZoo main stage. You can find the progress photos of this construction on the @raverade twitter. Despite the festival organizers blaming 'global supply chain disruptions" as the reasons for delay, a spokesperson for the City of New York released the following statement:

“New Yorkers' safety is always the top priority of the Adams administration, and we respect that the organizers of Electric Zoo have made the responsible decision to cancel the first day of the festival while they continue working to provide a safe environment for all attendees. When city agency teams were on site this morning, construction on the stages was not complete, and the grounds were not prepared to safely host thousands of attendees. We have been and continue working closely with the festival organizers to create a safe environment for all attendees to enjoy and to provide all appropriate approvals as quickly as possible. Our teams are on standby to walk through the site again this evening and determine whether the festival can proceed on Saturday, and we hope the thousands of New Yorkers and visitors will be able to enjoy the festival." - CITY HALL SPOKESPERSON

Billboard would later report that Fridays cancellation was not because of “global supply chain shortages” like the event organizers claimed, but because:

• Event organizers applied for permits well in advance but ultimately those permits were not issues Fri. due to safety concerns.

• Failure to pay vendors from its 2022 event, resulting in a shortage of “qualified event staff”.

Upon arrival to a delayed Day 2 (which oepend at 1pm, but was originally scheduled to open at 3pm), festival goers who needed to pick up tickets from the will call were greeted with extreme wait lines as long as 4 hours. One attendee got their tickets just 45 minutes prior to the festivals conclusion. Those who did manage to enter through the chaotic process with time to spare, reported experiencing screen and production malfunctions at multiple of the festivals 5 stages.

It was around this time on Saturday that Raverade amplified reports of a festival attendee being assaulted by Electric Zoo security. At this time, these were only rumors, but they were confirmed the following day when footage of the incident emerged. See our post to Twitter:

Footage later shared after the festival concluded via TikTok would confirm that Electric Zoo event security assaulted an attendee, although the full story is still unknown.

On the final day around 6:35PM, festival organizers reached event capacity and cut off some 7,000 attendees who were waiting for ferry's or in line just outside the security gates (without shade, water, or access to restrooms). This only lead to a large group of festival goers storming EZoos east gate security entrance, toppling fences in their way to enter a festival they were sold tickets to well in advance.

It would later be reported that the Electric Zoo oversold their event by more than 7,000 tickets, with roughly 88,000 people attending the event this year, according to the NYPD. Footage below shows the moment EZoo's East Gate Entrance was stormed: 

More footage (by @klurps) from the Electric Zoo mainstage shows just how dense crowds at the festival got after organizers announced that they'd reached capacity:

Since the festival occurred, at least one class action lawsuit has been filed “on behalf of all affected patrons who paid for ticket(s) for access or entry to [Electric Zoo] were not granted access.”, originally reported by The Rolling Stone. No additional information on refunds has been made by the company, other than the fact that their “not prepared to offer specifics”. It's certainly safe to say that the Electric Zoo created an extremely unsafe environment for its customers over labor day weekend, but it’s also just as safe to say Avant Gardner put profits above their attendees; and based on their history, it’s plausible to assume they’ll continue to do so.

Since the event occurred, there's has been and continues to be new updates and resurfaced truths surrounding Avant Gardner and its various New York venues and events. The exact elements that went into such a poorly executed event may never be fully comprehended, unless by some regularity or investigatory agency. For now, it can only be attributed to gross incompetence and extreme negligence on the part of event organizers.

We can only hope this newly found spotlight improves the bad, and helps festival goers better understand their collective power, as you are the main funders of these events.

— Stay tuned to @raverade on Twitter for more updates on this story.