New York, NY (September 21, 2023)—Billed as one of New York City’s largest music events, the Electric Zoo festival has been an annual gathering since 2009. Scheduled for September 1 – 3 this year at Randall’s Island in NYC, the festival anticipated hosting tens of thousands of EDM fans, and promised an extensive lineup of international electronic music artists, including Steve Aoki, The Chainsmokers, Major Lazer, Kx5 (aka deadmau5 and Kaskade), Marshmello and Alison Wonderland. Unfortunately, it turned out to be anything but a stroll through Wonderland.
At 11:35 a.m. on Friday, September 1—just a few hours prior to the start of the festival—an announcement was posted on Electric Zoo’s official Facebook page stating the following:
“This year has presented unparalleled challenges for everyone. The global supply chain disruptions have impacted industries worldwide, and, sadly, our beloved festival has not been immune. These unexpected delays have prevented us from completing the construction of the main stage in time for Day 1.”
Are you kidding me? What a bunch of BS. I guess promoter Avant Gardner didn’t realize until the last minute that they’d needed a stage and a P.A. system. Artists scheduled to perform on Friday (including Kx5) were simply canceled. I hope they were paid in advance, in full. Needless to say, fans were not happy.
Mishandling of the event continued on Saturday, when the opening was delayed two hours, with reports of people waiting in line as long as four hours to gain admittance.
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Sunday was when the debacle came to a crescendo: at around 6:30 p.m., festival organizers announced that the event “had reached capacity earlier than expected” and would not allow any more people to enter the grounds. The NYPD would later estimate that over the course of the weekend, the festival attracted more than 80,000 attendees above capacity. That’s a lot of angry music fans.
Sure, Avant Gardner offered refunds on festival tickets, as well as ferry and bus tickets, but what good is that if you’ve spent money on flights in/out of NYC and hotel rooms? And exactly what did the promoter expect would be the result of their actions? That people would turn around and go home quietly? Those fans were practically invited to riot, and it’s a miracle that all they did was storm the gates and push over barriers.
Avant Gardner has a reputation for overselling shows—sometimes by as much as 30 percent—including those at Brooklyn Mirage (which they own). That venue has been under careful examination since two men were found dead in separate incidents after leaving the venue in June and July. Clearly, Avant Gardner is not doing the right thing.
It’s easy to draw comparisons between Electric Zoo, the infamous Fyre Festival and Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld, but Electric Zoo 2023 appears to have pulled off a minor miracle: no one was reported killed or seriously injured, and no arrests were made. While that’s good news, this is not a good look for the live event industry, and Avant Gardner should be holding its head in shame.
