Sophia Michaels
devolved into a real zoo on Randall’s Island last week because its organizers came from the controversial Brooklyn Mirage crew.
A festival insider from Electric Zoo told us Brooklyn Mirage is to blame for the oversold “EZoo,” leading to cancelations, delays and an overcrowded, dangerous situation.
The trouble started when Avant Gardner — the entity that runs Brooklyn Mirage — purchased the festival last year, they alleged.
“They bought the festival, and then fired everyone, who ran Electric Zoo, and then rehired everyone once they found out they really couldn’t put it on,” a source claimed.
This year, however, they “made a decision to run [the fest] internally and let go all of the senior people [who] were running EZoo. They didn’t use an actual festival production company,” the insider said.
Planning for the Labor Day weekend festival allegedly didn’t start until “around June when typically plans start around December” of the previous year. This led to the festival canceling Day 1, “due to global supply chain disruptions.”
But our insider said that explanation was bogus.
“It was total bulls–t. All the vendors are in the US, and in the Tri-State area. They started planning very late in the game and were not reserving trucks, equipment, inventory, putting stages together,” the source said.
The office of Mayor Eric Adams has threatened to take action.
“We will be dealing with [the organizers] in the next few days based on their behavior and actions,” Adams warned in a briefing last week.
A rep for Electric Zoo would not confirm our insider’s claims, and insisted “the vast majority of Electric Zoo attendees had a great experience.”
The rep acknowledged, “our job is to make sure everyone’s experience [is] phenomenal. We’ll be working closely with our partners to review the planning and execution of the event from start to finish.”
The Post reported that concertgoers rushed the gate on the fest’s final day after organizers said the venue on Randall’s Island had unexpectedly reached capacity. The first night was called off just hours before the festival was supposed to get underway.
