Angry fans seek answers over Electric Zoo Festival failures on Randalls Island in NYC
They got the zoo part right.
Frenzied festival flockers continued to rail against organizers of the Electric Zoo field day fiesta on Randalls Island after a flood of problems shut down the first day of the three-day event and sparked overcrowding chaos at the grand finale.
Irate participants and ticket holders locked out of the electronic dance music festivities demanded refunds and a full accounting of what went so horribly wrong.
Event organizer Avant Gardner announced around 6:30 p.m. Sunday that admission to the annual techno show, which was in its third day, was closed.
It cited capacity issues caused by previous setbacks that saw the event’s opening night canceled due to “global supply chain disruptions.”
Despite the announcement, video posted online shows ticket holders appearing to overwhelm security after organizers attempted to turn away concertgoers from the rain-or-shine event.
The footage shows hordes of music fans dashing past ticket checkers as cops appear to get out of the way of the unruly crowd.
The event was filled with sour notes.
“When the majority started charging through, they started yelling, ‘Push,” said Bronx native Luis Diaz, 27.
“Whether you wanted to or not, you started getting pushed out,” added Diaz, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., but flew in with friends for the event. “Our row was waiting to see what would happen, but we didn’t have a choice but to go in or be trampled.”
He said there were no such issues the first two times he went to the festival, in 2017 and 2018.
“In the past when the tickets sold out they sold out,” he said. “They wouldn’t add more tickets to the website like they did this year.”
Many at Electric Zoo flooded social media with complaints about the event.
“No announcements were made to the attendees regarding safety. Zero,” one angry concertgoer named Nate tweeted in all-caps. “Unless you saw or heard of the stampede, you would’ve had no idea it was happening. My fiancee and I decided to leave when we saw NYPD COPTERS circling the island.”
But even before the overcrowding chaos, Nate said he was convinced the event was a scam.
“On Day 2 (which opened late) they were still selling Day 2 tickets at 1030P and the venue closed at 11,” he tweeted. “Food prices were jacked up by insane amounts. Food price increases were anywhere from 20% to 33% from last year, maybe more.”
Another tweeter, a DJ with the handle Dark Mark, was looking for answers.
“Why did you sell more tickets than the legal capacity?” he tweeted.
Representatives for promotion company Avant Gardner and the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Event organizers did go online to offer refunds to customers who did not get in, but did not explain why tickets were apparently sold beyond capacity.
Electric Zoo’s woes this year brought memories of the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017, when partiers complained of disastrous conditions while being stranded in the Bahamas.
There was also a failed pizza fest in Brooklyn that same year that had foodies demanding refunds after waiting in long lines to get in.
Meanwhile in Nevada, tens of thousands of people at the Burning Man festival were stuck in the mud over the weekend after heavy rains flooded the desert concert venue.
Attendees were told to shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert and conserve food, water and fuel after a rainstorm swamped the area, forcing officials to halt any entering or leaving of the festival.