This year's Electric Zoo Festival turned into just that — a zoo. Music was the last thing on many people's minds between delays, cancellations, and angry fans. Billed as one of the country's largest electronic music celebrations, the New York-based event is held annually over Labor Day weekend. It brings international DJs and musicians to celebrate all forms of electronic music.
Throughout this year's 3-day festival, also known as EZoo, chaos ensued as nothing seemed to go right. While the festival has faced issues in the past, 2023 took the cake and put a bad taste in the mouths of many festivalgoers. And, to make matters worse, an unexpected announcement caused a frightening stampede. Here's everything we know so far about the Electric Zoo Festival.
Background On Electric Zoo Festival
According to its website, the first Electric Zoo Festival took place in 2009 and lasted two days at Randall's Island in NYC, where it's held every year. Two years later, organizers made the festival a three-day event to accommodate more visitors and performers. In 2012, more than 100,000 people attended, making it the biggest festival at the time. Unfortunately, the 2013 event was marred by the deaths of two attendees due to drug overdoses and hyperthermia.
Because of this, the event's stakeholders focused more on health and safety in subsequent years. After the pandemic shut down the festival in 2020 and a revised version in 2021, EZoo was back and better than ever. By 2023, the festival had become an electronic music phenomenon, and festivalgoers couldn't wait. However, things would go awry from the beginning to the end.
Electric Zoo Festival Starts On The Wrong Foot
On Friday, September 1, eager fans were ready to get into the festival to hear their favorite musicians and DJs. Unfortunately, things didn't quite pan out that way, and the event was canceled before it even started. The festival's organizers, Avant Gardner, posted a lengthy statement on its X account. They started with, "Despite our tireless efforts and round-the-clock commitment, we have made the painful decision to cancel the first day of Electric Zoo."
Per the organizers, they faced "global supply chain disruptions." What did this mean? It meant they couldn't even complete the "construction of the main stage in time for Day 1." However, industry sources told Billboard that the explanation wasn't true. Instead, they claimed there weren't enough qualified professionals willing to work this year's event because Electric Zoo Festival reportedly failed to pay vendors last year. Additionally, city inspectors found safety and security issues with the main stage that the festival needed to fix hours before the gates opened.
To make things right, the organizers announced plans to refund Friday's tickets fully and promised as "seamless and prompt" a process as possible. Further, the organizers wrote, "On a brighter note, Saturday and Sunday are set to be truly magical." While the Electric Zoo Festival promised happier days ahead, more problems were in store.
Late Start
On Saturday, the Electric Zoo Festival was delayed by two hours to fix the previous issues with the stage. On top of that, organizers hadn't mailed fans their tickets and wristbands as promised, according to Billboard. As a result, festivalgoers had to line up for hours to get their tickets. Some posted online that people had to wait up to four hours at will-call to obtain the tickets they had already purchased.
While some fans said it was worth the wait to get in, others felt like they had been bamboozled. Many fans took to social media to complain about how the festival seemed way more packed than in years past. Some people got in so late that they could only see the closing acts. When it was time to leave, one attendee told the NY Daily News, "...the crowd was forced into a narrow chokepoint where multiple people passed out from exhaustion or had panic attacks from being in tight quarters for hours." Despite all the difficulties of the past two days, plenty of fans just knew that the final day would be the best yet.
Entry Denied
Unfortunately, Sunday, the festival's final day, turned out to be the most chaotic of all. By 6:30 p.m., the venue reached capacity, so many ticket-goers were denied entry. Once again, organizers took to X and announced that the gates were closed, but everybody who couldn't get in would receive a refund. However, that didn't sit right with fans.
Many disappointed Electric Zoo Festival ticketholders started jumping the gates, pushing through barricades and security. As a result, a stampede ensued. Images and videos from social media saw the widespread chaos take place. In some instances, fans and security got into scuffles with people throwing things. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone was seriously hurt. Although the New York Police Department was on the scene, there are reports that no arrests were made.
What We Now Know
Sources say organizers oversold more than 7,000 tickets, leading to overcrowding and capacity issues. Besides plenty of upset fans, NYPD, the city, and Mayor Eric Adams have promised to get to the bottom of things. In fact, Mayor Adams said the city would take action and came down hard on organizers for creating an unsafe environment. Adams stated during a briefing, “It’s unfortunate that the organizers wanted to turn our city into a zoo, and we were not going to allow that to happen.” He added, “And we will be dealing with them in the next few days based on their behavior and actions.” Hopefully, next year's Electric Zoo Festival will be much smoother and more organized.