Avant Gardner
Avant Gardner revealed the new look for the Brooklyn Mirage today, releasing new renderings for the marquee dance venue that doubles as the inner courtyard for the 80,000-sq.-ft. live music compound in East Williamsburg. Closed in November to begin renovations, CEO Josh Wyatt says the new Brooklyn Mirage will keep its open sky outdoor aesthetic while expanding its dance floor from a 4,500-person capacity to 6,250 when it reopens May 1.
Wyatt, who has two decades of experience in nightlife, including management at the members-only social club NeueHouse, describes the bold new look of Brooklyn Mirage as “operatic grandeur” created as an “open air sanctuary” where “world-class artists and audiences unite” across a multilayered tapestry of light, sound and kinetic energy. Created by Avant Gardner’s in-house design and production team, in partnership with design studios Hard Feelings and Studio Greenbank, Brooklyn Mirage’s dance floor, elevated seating tiers and artist end stage all connect in a horseshoe-style configuration.
“It’s a huge dance floor, really, the largest in New York City,” Wyatt tells Billboard “And then when you’re looking at the overall structure, it’s three stories high and reveals itself as you traverse the structure through different sight lines and experiences. That’s something that the Mirage has always excelled at; providing these different moments from different perspectives within the venue.”
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The massive structure, which climbs up to 65 feet and its highest point, is built almost entirely from pre-manufactured and CNC-cut timber, making it one of the largest timber structures in the U.S. The 30k resolution wraparound LED wall features the first fully kinetic shutter system in live music, curtaining the length of the venue and giving artists full control over the venue’s comprehensive performance features. Brooklyn Mirage’s sound system is powered by L-Acoustics and includes more than 100 loud speakers and subwoofers strategically configuered for maximum sound balance and acoustic coverage. Brooklyn Mirage’s 90-foot stage is designed to accomodate modern touring shows, whether it be a global headliner DJ or a ten-piece rock group, with more than 20,000 tons of rigging capacity and seamless load-in and load-out.
Wyatt said his team has also made key upgrades to safety with new perimeter lighting, clear venue signage, and well lit and monitored rideshare drop-off zones. His team also invested in upgrading cell service at the venue to improve guest navigation and connectivity. Wyatt said the renovations were done with sustainability in mind, noting the facilities extensive use of pre-fabricated timber.
“Wood is a heck of a lot easier to engineer than other materials,” Wyatt said. “We have a commitment to sustainability and adaptive reuse and wanted to upcycle the wood components here. We felt that it would be a lot more friendly and like lower carbon footprint to be able to build it with predominantly with wood. Obviously, there are some steel elements but for building quickly and building efficiently, wood is more effective for engineering and for sustainability.”
More than 100 shows are confirmed to follow Brooklyn Mirages May 1 & 2 reopening with Sara Landry and upcoming shows from Cityfox (May 3), Cloonee (May 10), Empire of the Sun (May 21), two nights of Chainsmokers (May 22 & 23) and two nights of Excision (May 24-25).
For tickets and the latest event updates, visit Avant-Gardner.com.
After opening its doors in early 2018, It didn’t take long for multi-venue dance destination Avant Garder to dominate New York’s nightlife scene. Each year, the indoor/outdoor complex that includes Brooklyn Mirage, the Kings Hall and Great Hall has attracted some of the biggest names in dance, including a busy 2024 season that saw sellouts by Black Coffee, Swedish House Mafia, DavidGuetta, Gesaffelstein, Diplo, Anderson. Paak, Carl Cox, Deadmau5 and Three 6 Mafia.
That success comes in spite of the high-profile September 2023 collapse of the Electric Zoo festival — the Randall’s Island EDM festival purchased by Avant Gardner co-founder Billy Bildstein and the company’s former chief creative officer Philipp Wiederkehr the year before. Once a staple of the New York festival scene, the 2023 version of Electric Zoo was marred by missed permit deadlines, rampant overcrowding and safety violations later cited by former ally turned critic, Mayor Eric Adams.
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“It’s something I wanted to address head-on,” says Josh Wyatt, Avant Gardner’s new CEO, who officially begins his new role on Wednesday (Oct. 23) but has spent the last several months working behind the scenes to settle any lingering issues in the aftermath of the Electric Zoo debacle. “If I were to make a constructive criticism of the company in the past, it’s that they have not always done a good job of communicating with the various [Electric Zoo] stakeholders.”
“Over the last eight weeks, I have reached out to every key stakeholder in Electric Zoo and I’ve made them whole,” Wyatt added of refunding ticket holders, settling with vendors and managing small litigation issues. “I’m proud of that.”
Wyatt counts two decades of experience in the hospitality and nightlife sectors, including his most recent tenure as CEO of the members-only social club NeueHouse and its sister company, the photography museum Fotografiska. He also served as president of Equinox Hotels and as co-founder/managing partner of Generator Hostels.
Wyatt joins Avant Gardner after the company brought on a new unnamed investor, which has “inject(ed) the company with growth capital to allow myself as the new CEO to really operate the company,” he says, adding that Bildstein will serve as “my partner in this journey” as founder/creative director. Together, the two will explore the first phase of experiential evolution inside Avant Gardner with a handful of new initiatives including the launch of a music venue/mocktail bar, as well as new community spaces like a hi-fi listening room for audiophiles and immersive art and visual studios for guests.
“That’s the trend that’s happening right now and It’s something that we see a lot of our guests asking for — places to chill out and refresh,” Wyatt says.
Another group of Electric Zoo ticket buyers have filed a class action over what they call the “absolute fiasco” at this year’s festival, marking at least the fourth such lawsuit filed against promoter Avant Gardner, the organizer of the popular dance music event.
In a complaint filed Thursday in New York state court, lawyers for four attendees accused the Brooklyn-based company of false advertising, breach of contract and other wrongdoing over the event, which saw its Friday shows canceled at the last minute and Sunday plagued by problems.
“Normally this event is a transcendental audio-visual festival that creates everlasting thrilling memories for tens of thousands of EDM fans,” their lawyers wrote. “And while it did create everlasting memories in 2023, the memories created were not the ones which ticket holders were looking forward to.”
The “oversold, grossly understaffed” festival was “nothing short of an absolute fiasco,” attorneys for the concertgoers wrote, resulting in “long lines, massive overcrowding, and a literal stampede of people when it was discovered that the organizers oversold tickets.” The case was filed on behalf of Billy Ting, Duoc Vo, Garry Huang, Jeffrey Wang and Joshua Chin, but said it aims to represent as many as 75,000 ticketbuyers who had similar experiences.
Electric Zoo, held annually on New York City’s Randall’s Island, is one of the country’s top electronic dance festivals, but this year’s iteration – the second by Avant Gardner since the company acquired the festival in 2022 — was marred by issues.
First came an abrupt cancellation of Friday evening, meaning no performances by top names like The Chainsmokers and Kx5. That was followed by a delayed start and long lines on Saturday, and then a chaotic Sunday in which thousands of ticketholders were denied entry after the site reached capacity. Some fans jumped fences or ran through security checkpoints as a group.
Avant Gardner, which promised refunds for Friday and for anyone turned away on Sunday, blamed the problems on “global supply chain disruptions.” But sources later told Billboard that the Friday shutdown largely had stemmed from the promoter’s failure to pay vendors from last year’s festival, leading to a shortage of experienced concert professionals willing to work at this year’s event. Those shortages led to issues that caused city officials to withhold permitting approval until they were fixed. Citing internal sources, the New York Post also attributed the problems to staffing issues, as well as to a planning process that allegedly started months later than usual for a festival of its size and complexity.
Additionally, Sunday’s problems were caused by overselling the event by 7,000 people, according to an NYPD estimate reported by local news outlets. Shortly after the festival, Mayor Eric Adams suggested the city might launch an investigation into Avant Gardner over the debacle: “It’s unfortunate that the organizers wanted to turn our city into a zoo.”
Thursday’s lawsuit is at least the fourth such class action filed over the messy event. The first, filed on Sept. 13 in federal court, said Avant Gardner had caused “a nightmare endured by thousands of electronic music fans.” Another, filed just three days later in the same court, said the organizers had “lied to their guests at every opportunity.” In a third lawsuit, a Connecticut man said the festival’s “lack of planning and overselling of tickets” had caused dangerous overcrowding that caused him to “fear for his life.”
The specifics are varied, but all four lawsuits allege roughly similar forms of wrongdoing: That the Electric Zoo organizers misled ticket buyers, that they broke promises to concertgoers, and that they were negligent in failing to prevent the problems. Each case is seeking to represent hundreds or thousands of fans, and some or all of the cases could eventually be combined into a single, consolidated action.
A representative for Avant Gardner did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Electric Zoo class actions are only the latest legal issues for Avant Gardner, which operates an 80,000 square foot, multi-venue facility in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg neighborhood. The company and owner Jürgen “Billy” Bildstein have clashed for years with the State Liquor Authority over allegations of drug use and other safety issues, including a 2020 agreement in which the company agreed to a $100,000 fine and to retain an independent safety monitor.
In August, that state-appointed monitor, T&M Security LLC, sued the company, claiming Avant Gardner had terminated the arrangement prematurely and then refused to pay its fees. A month earlier, another case claimed that security guards had assaulted patrons while searching them for drugs during a pride event.
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