Brooklyn Mirage is each a paradise and a paradox.
Unparalleled programming and manufacturing intertwined with some critical pitfalls have created a notion of the storied EDM venue that seesaws between excellence and dysfunction. However with new management on the helm, 2025 might be a turning level.
First, the nice. There’s no denying that the New York venue’s curation is top-notch. Dance music’s largest artists—like Carl Cox, John Summit, Keinemusik, Black Espresso and Swedish Home Mafia—usually take the stage at Brooklyn Mirage. File labels and types with thriving communities—like Anjunadeep, Boiler Room, Mayan Warrior and All Day I Dream—curate reveals there too. And rewarding the truest of revelers, dusk-to-dawn reveals are hosted recurrently, spurring dawn units in a sprawling setting that few stateside venues can pull off.
Plus, the venue’s manufacturing rivals competition phases. The sound system is stellar and Brooklyn Mirage’s gargantuan, 300-foot, 14K LED video wall is a spectacle.
But it surely’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Experiences lately of operational mismanagement and security considerations have soured the venue’s relationship with longstanding patrons. Social media is rampant with accounts of aggressive safety, oversold reveals and confiscation of Narcan, a life-saving remedy that’s extensively thought-about a crucial hurt discount software within the dance music group. A pair of mysterious deaths close to Brooklyn Mirage in 2023 additionally forged a protracted shadow over the venue’s status, fueling requires higher accountability and improved security measures.
Josh Wyatt, the brand new CEO of Avant Gardner—the multi-venue complicated that homes Brooklyn Mirage—is set to deal with the venue’s most urgent considerations with significant change.
“Trust, transparency and accountability are the three key words in my moral compass,” Wyatt tells EDM.com in a sweeping interview. “I have pushed those three words down into the fiber of the company to ensure that employees understand that these are key expectations I have as CEO.”
It’s pure to be skeptical about lofty statements. “So what does this all mean in practice?” Wyatt himself segues, increasing on a number of concrete methods to rebuild belief with patrons who could have had unfavorable experiences at Brooklyn Mirage prior to now.
“We’ve heard feedback that the way security interacts with fans is too draconian,” he says. “I think that comes down to training and a commitment to change the company culture.”
To handle this suggestions, Wyatt plans to broaden Brooklyn Mirage’s visitor ambassador program and have all employees bear hospitality coaching. This community-based method to visitor relations ought to translate to extra nice experiences with employees as soon as Brooklyn Mirage reopens later this yr, he says.
“It’s one thing to understand the technical details of the venue, but it’s another thing to actually be trained with a culture of hospitality: welcoming people, really wanting to make sure that guests feel safe, feel heard and are given the opportunity to have a great time.”
Aside from hospitality coaching, Wyatt mentions that every one employees has already undergone coaching on hurt discount, overdose prevention, anti-harassment, sexual violence prevention, CPR/AED, bystander intervention and Narcan administration. Relating to previous studies of employees confiscating Narcan, he affirms that the medication is permitted into the venue and that every one employees has been made conscious of the coverage. Nevertheless, Wyatt stresses that patrons in want of assist ought to search out educated medical professionals who will probably be onsite at each present.
But it surely’s not simply the way in which by which employees members work together with followers that has confirmed to be an albatross for Brooklyn Mirage—it’s additionally the way in which they current themselves.
“When someone comes in and sees security in quasi-military gear, it certainly sends a message, and that message is definitely not one of openness and positivity,” Wyatt admits. “Our objective could be much like the U.S. Secret Service or Federal Air Marshals. There’s numerous stuff that occurs behind the scenes that you just by no means see, but it’s secure for politicians to present a speech, and it’s additionally secure for us to fly.”
Wyatt emphasizes there’s nuance in prioritizing security while maintaining a welcoming atmosphere. “It’s almost like being a swan. We’re paddling furiously underneath, but all you should see is a hospitality-forward company.”
When it comes to safety outside the venue’s walls, Brooklyn Mirage is investing in improvements, Wyatt says, to “lighting, fencing, perimeter sight lines, way-finding, signage to subways and rideshare, and cell phone service—through finally getting the right permits and licenses to install more cell phone towers.”
These changes should make a big difference since the streets surrounding Brooklyn Mirage are relatively quiet with limited residential presence. The immediate vicinity comprises several blocks of warehouses, factories and commercial buildings with sparse street lighting and low pedestrian traffic.
The venue will also continue working with both NYPD and private security to patrol the surrounding neighborhood after shows end, policing unlicensed drivers from picking up inebriated patrons. Though Wyatt states that there are legal and technical limits to what they can do once someone exits the venue.
“It’s more of a neighborhood or community problem,” he adds. “I would challenge everyone around us as neighbors to work together collectively—whether it’s other nightlife operators in the area, property owners or politicians—we need to work together to make the neighborhood a more welcoming place.”
Aside from hospitality and security, capability is without doubt one of the largest criticisms of Brooklyn Mirage. Patrons usually report that reveals really feel overcrowded and oversold, typically elevating considerations about potential hearth hazards.
Wyatt views capability throughout two axes: technical (the format of the dancefloor) and useful (the variety of individuals on the dancefloor).
On the technical entrance, “there will probably be no obstacles, columns or manufacturing tents on the dancefloor,” Wyatt says. “That’s a very simple but profound fix that we think will improve crowd flow.”
For those who’ve been to Brooklyn Mirage, you’ve in all probability skilled bottlenecks across the metal boundaries of the massive manufacturing tent behind the dancefloor or across the towering, obstructive columns unfold throughout the dancefloor. Eliminating these buildings will open up considerably extra space for dancing. Wyatt additionally guarantees new areas with direct sight traces to the stage.
Bryan Kwon
In actual fact, holding true to its title, Brooklyn Mirage as we all know it’ll disappear. The house is being rebuilt from the bottom up, and the rebuild will lead to a bigger dancefloor and dynamic manufacturing design.
“We can’t fully disclose what we’re doing, but I can tell you that when you walk into Brooklyn Mirage for the first time, you’re going to see a set design that will blow you away,” Wyatt emphasizes. “Then when you come back two weeks or two months later, it’s going to look totally different. The type of technology that we’re designing to be able to allow us to do that is bespoke and has never been done before—I think it’s pretty mind-blowing.”
Like it or hate it, Brooklyn Mirage will sundown its signature video wall. Wyatt favors flexibility in stage design and thinks the video wall creates a set standpoint that restricts optionality. “We’ve been flirting with new production elements ahead of the 2025 Mirage season,” he says. “One of our first tests was this sort of 360° pulsating visual rig that we put up for Rampa at the Great Hall in December.”
“The second space of technical movement is how individuals get out and in of the venue and the way individuals get between the completely different sections inside the venue,” Wyatt continues. “With the new venue design, we’ve addressed all pressure points to make the guest experience a lot easier and more intuitive in terms of flowing through the venue. Because it’s not just about dancing, it’s also about the ability to get to the exits, bars and bathrooms quickly.”
Aside from streamlined flow, Wyatt says the revamped Brooklyn Mirage will also have “new areas where people can peel out of the main dancefloor, hang out and have much better experiences and side quests around the entire campus.” For those who’ve ever been to the venue and located your self stumped by an aggressive safety guard telling you that the elevated flooring are closed off, Wyatt needs to repair that. He acknowledges that space restrictions weren’t all the time clearly communicated by employees prior to now, however enhanced signage and hospitality coaching will change that.
In the case of the burning query of whether or not Brooklyn Mirage oversells reveals, Wyatt says he needs to be each “transparent and a little combative” in his response.
“I’ve seen the numbers. In the past for 2023 and before, I think there was overselling,” he reveals. “In 2024, there was a cap on the number of tickets that were sold. I have all the data and other than maybe one or two shows, there was never overselling of tickets. So I acknowledge that customer feedback that it’s been overcrowded, but since I came on board, I said whatever the venue capacity is, you cannot sell one ticket beyond that.”
“Perception is everything,” he provides. “We have to communicate effectively with all the constituents that touch the company—vendors, employees, neighbors, politicians and of course fans. We’ve been putting out communications in writing, on social media, and in person to tell people what we are going to do, show people that we’ve listened to their feedback and to provide a solution to any type of challenge that people have faced.”
For those who scroll by Brooklyn Mirage’s Instagram web page, you’ll discover a drastic distinction in how they’re partaking with followers. Any criticism is met with openness and positivity. Earlier than Wyatt joined the corporate, responses to feedback on social media have been non-existent.
“We need to have an active dialogue where you recognize a customer has had either a positive experience or a negative experience, and comment on that to either give reinforcement to the positive moment or a service path to recovering from a negative moment,” Wyatt explains. “The team has been incentivized to be very engaged on social media.”
Alongside Web Promoter Rating, a standardized methodology for benchmarking and capturing suggestions within the hospitality and nightlife trade, Brooklyn Mirage will collate buyer sentiment on social media to measure the success of its new insurance policies on enhancing the visitor expertise.
Wyatt’s concentrate on visitor satisfaction stems from over twenty years of expertise within the hospitality trade.
“I’ve always been deeply motivated and inspired by creative companies that have a meaningful community,” he says. “Brands that can define, support and grow a community are brands that typically stand the test of time. They may go through ups and downs, but the ones I think that survive and eventually thrive over years and more importantly decades are ones that understand their community and know how to foster a long-term view of that community. I’ve always aligned myself to companies that follow that mantra.”
Wyatt’s most up-to-date tenure as CEO of social membership NeueHouse and its sister firm, the pictures museum Fotografiska, was rooted in community-building. NeuHouse’s cultural programming (artist talks, movie screenings, creator dinners), inside design (communal workspaces and lounges) and membership have been designed to foster a vibrant group of creators, inventors and thought leaders.
His previous experiences as president of Equinox Lodges and co-founder of Generator Hostels share related group underpinnings. “When I started Generator—back when the word Millennial was the equivalent of what Gen Z is today—no one understood the concept of bringing together high-level interior design, cultural curation and music into the budget travel industry,” he says. “We did that with Generator.”
A part of Wyatt’s efforts with Generator additionally included an early discovery of now-global music broadcasting platform Boiler Room. “We were the first to ever bring Boiler Room on the road,” he recollects. “We found them in a garage in Shoreditch back in 2008 and thought that they were incredible and that they should travel. So we were the first ones to ever actually stream a touring Boiler Room. It happened in Berlin, back in 2010, and was the first touch point I had seeing the power of electronic music with a communal, tribal vibe—people coming together to experience a profound sense of joy and emotion.”
To today, Wyatt nonetheless champions rising expertise, pointing to Keinemusik supporting Desiree and Black Espresso working with Shimza as nice examples. In flip, he goals to make use of Brooklyn Mirage as a lever the place established acts can amplify rising abilities, a possibility he known as “one of the best parts about this job.”
“One of the things that I’m intrigued by is this concept of established artists or platforms that are also really, really good at developing talent underneath them and elevating that talent, whether it’s directly on a label or just as friends.”
Brooklyn Mirage kicks off its 2025 season on Could 1st. You could find out extra by way of the venue’s web site.
