An electronic music festival on Randall’s Island that devolved into a poorly planned, over-capacity fiasco last year continues to create legal headaches for its embattled investors.
An array of vendors and employees have filed five separate lawsuits in state and federal court in recent months accusing the owners of the ill-fated Electric Zoo festival of stiffing them out of nearly $1 million in unpaid wages and invoices from last year’s three-day event, which was marred by an abrupt cancellation one day and dangerous overcrowding on another.
The lawsuits are the latest in a long line of controversies surrounding the owners of the festival, including promoter Jurgen “Billy” Bildstein. The same people own Avant Gardner — the massive East Williamsburg music complex that includes The Brooklyn Mirage, one of the largest concert venues in New York City. Gothamist has previously reported on the investors’ yearslong battles with state liquor regulators over drug use and overdose deaths at Avant Gardner, including how at one point Bildstein leaned on Mayor Eric Adams’ office to intervene.
A review of the latest court documents shows:
- At least 43 barbacks, bartenders, bussers, servers and hosts say Electric Zoo’s owners failed to pay them at least a portion of their hourly wages or tips for last year’s festival, with some saying they didn’t get paid any wages at all.
- A cleaning and maintenance company, Goldstar Staffing, alleges Electric Zoo’s owners owe $300,000 for work performed at the festival and at Brooklyn Mirage shows.
- The Laser Light Company, which says it was hired at the last minute to provide laser light shows at the festival’s various stages, claims it’s owed $130,000.
- A company specializing in creating and selling festival merchandise, The Bright Pursuit LLC, says it’s owed $211,248.
- And Sunbelt Rentals, which provides tools and equipment, says it’s owed $189,427.
Avant Gardner’s spokespeople did not return an email seeking comment. Nor did attorneys representing Avant Gardner and EZ Festivals, Electric Zoo’s parent company, in the various lawsuits. In a court filing Monday, EZ Festivals denied the allegations from Sunbelt Rentals.
Andre Desir, an attorney for the Laser Light Company, said his client is a small business that just wants to be paid.
After agreeing to a payment plan, Avant Gardner’s general counsel, Faisal Lateef, did provide $45,000 in payments, according to Desir and email correspondence included in the complaint. But beyond that, the payments stopped, according to the suit. The company is suing for the remaining $130,000.
“This isn’t a one-off,” Desir said. “This company, this organization, this entity has a pattern of behavior of entering contracts and not paying people that they enter into contracts with.”
The Electric Zoo festival dates back to 2009. The annual gathering over Labor Day weekend regularly attracted some of the biggest names in electronic dance music to multiple stages on Randall’s Island.
Avant Gardner’s owners purchased the rights to Electric Zoo and its parent company, Made Event, for $15 million in 2022, according to Billboard.
The 2023 festival, the first run entirely by the new ownership, quickly descended into chaos.
The first day of the three-day gathering in September was abruptly canceled just a few hours before doors were opened, with organizers blaming it on “global supply chain” issues that led to delays building the stages. Later, the NYPD said the city declined to issue permits to open the festival since construction wasn’t finished.
The third and final day of the festival reached capacity around 6:30 p.m., with thousands of ticket holders yet to be admitted — leading some to crash the gates. The NYPD estimated Electric Zoo oversold its 42,500 capacity by more than 7,500 tickets.
The mess led to a class-action lawsuit filed by ticket holders, which remains pending. In reply, Electric Zoo and Avant Gardner’s attorneys said the lawsuit is “unsubstantiated” and “not actionable under law.”
The festival finally began paying out refunds in June. But the vendors and employees who filed lawsuits say they still haven’t been paid.
That includes Goldstar Staffing owner Marco Sanchez. In his lawsuit, Sanchez claims he’s been forced to borrow money to pay his employees, who provided cleaning and maintenance support at various Brooklyn Mirage shows and last year’s Electric Zoo festival.
In text message and email exchanges with Avant Gardner employees, Sanchez claims his workers have physically threatened him for payment. Avant Gardner owes his company in excess of $300,000, he claims.
“My main team and I are in a constant state of fear as we are being hounded by [Goldstar staff] from Brooklyn Mirage and Electric Zoo that we still can’t pay because of weeks and months of delays from [Avant Gardner],” Sanchez wrote in an email to Avant Gardner’s vice president of finance.
On the other hand, Electric Zoo’s parent company briefly filed a lawsuit against Las Vegas-based AG Light & Sound, a stage and lighting company, accusing it of failing to provide enough manpower to build the stages and lighting rigs for last year’s festival — which helped cause significant financial losses for the festival.
But Electric Zoo later withdrew the lawsuit without explanation. The stage and lighting company could not be reached for comment.
Gothamist has previously reported that Bildstein and Avant Gardner share a close connection with Mayor Eric Adams’ office. Adams’ former chief of staff, Frank Carone, represented the venue in a battle with the State Liquor Authority before Adams became mayor.
In 2022, Adams’ office arranged a meeting between Bildstein and Kathryn Garcia, a top aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, at a time when the liquor authority was threatening Avant Gardner’s liquor license amid a series of deaths at the venue, Gothamist reported.
“We are hopeful that under this governor businesses will be treated fairly by the SLA,” Adams’ chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, wrote to Garcia after the meeting.
Following last year’s debacle, Adams suggested the city would take action against the festival’s organizers for overselling the event.
To date, no such action has been taken. In November, City Hall said the matter had been referred to the city’s Law Department. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.
No dates have been set this year for another Electric Zoo festival.