"Due to poor weather, the New York City Parks Department, Prospect Park Alliance, and Googamooga have decided to cancel today's festivities in the interest of safety and prevention of damage to the park grounds, the Propect Park Alliance just anounced.
All Sunday VIP ticket purchases will be refunded in full.
Critics have repeatedly pointed out that the vast majority of the event takes place on greenscape. Grass for instance is far more susceptible to damage from heavy equipment and from large sustained pedestrian uses when it rains.
Attendees complained they received emails as late as 11:10 a.m. this morning from GoogaMooga organizers - less than an hour before the event was cancelled - saying additional Sunday tickets were available, and that the lines are moving quickly.
"So safety conditions arose in 50 minutes?" one said.
Others waiting to enter the festival also received the email.
"That frustrated all those who were waiting around us, as clearly there were no [food] lines to be moving," he said.
Responses via Twitter compiled by
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Eater NY
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Here's one from a vender...
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Exiting the event on Sunday.
Mayers said he couldn't specify how the vendors and their vehicles will get out of Prospect Park without doing too much damage to the grass. "Right now we're working hard with our vendors to figure that out. [The grass] is definitely being considered."
What about all that food and booze? "Same thing. Our operations team is working on that."
Last night Mayers released a statement saying that GoogaMooga would address the money lost by vendors due to today's cancellation:
GoogaMooga is all about supporting local businesses and our intention is to do right by each vendor. In the coming days, we will be sitting down with all our partners to find financial solutions.
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THANK GOD.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, any and all of us who are aware of the extent of this vendor-ization of our public parks, the exploitation and the degradation as the private sector gains more ground and the concept of preserving and protecting a natural landscape becomes arcane -- we need to re-invigorate the original vision which created parks like Prospect and sanctuaries like Jamaica Bay. We need to fight for Flushing Meadows. We need to join forces and push back this tsunami of capitalism that wants nothing more than to convert every wilderness into a concession stand. We are suffering from a bi-polar local and fed policy which on the one hand initiates and funds programs for preservation and protection and on the other encourages private industry to destroy all that is being preserved.
@johannaclear
Victory! Now let's pray they protect the green while breaking down, as promised!
ReplyDelete