Whipped Cream Difficulties

This is a story that’s mostly local, but it pushes enough of my buttons to document here.

The Brooklyn Mirage, a 32,000-square-foot open-air concert hall in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is slated to be razed following ongoing financial distress and a failed return this summer, according to demolition permits.

“Razed”.

The seasonal music venue is part of the 80,000-square-foot Avant Gardner complex, which also hosts The Great Hall and Kings Hall – both indoor venues which have shows scheduled through Dec. 6.

I can’t tell if the two halls are connected to the Mirage, or if they are stand-alone entities.

The Department of Buildings revoked the venue’s temporary occupancy certificate just days before its anticipated opening, which was set to feature headliners like Sara Landry, Alesso and Peggy Gou.

Who?

The agency had numerous objections “both safety-related and technical in nature,” the DOB wrote at the time, according to Brooklyn Paper. Some of those issues included inadequate accessibility requirements, toilets and automatic fire sprinklers.

This is the part that got me.

“From [the venue’s] questionable footing to the large truss at its zenith, from its cantilevered mezzanines to its exterior walls, it was potentially unsteady, combustible, illegal, and no place to put 6,000 people,” Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said in a statement.

“unsteady, combustible, illegal, and no place to put 6,000 people”. Sounds like somebody messed up badly. Or else they didn’t bribe the right people.

The parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, calling the Mirage closure “catastrophic” for company finances in court documents.

Yes, I would imagine that not being able to open would be “catastrophic”.

Bankruptcy records show that the venue owes various vendors more than $10 million, including a cool $1.8 million to the DJ Black Coffee Entertainment from South Africa.

…

The parent company is now selling off its assets to an “affiliate” of the company’s lender, according to The Real Deal (the company has up to $500 million in liabilities and only at most $100 million in assets).

All of these problems make me think there’s one thing going on…

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2025 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.