After a first day that has been called by many attendees a “shit show,” with long lines, technical difficulties resulting in missing money, and–most damning–a serious shortage of food (and little booze to smooth out hard feelings), it’s looking like tensions are still running high at The Great GoogaMooga food festival in Prospect Park, where one ANIMAL reporter just filmed a group of people about to come to blows over–wait for it–a piece of fried chicken.
Update from our man-in-the-tent:
It was at the Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken booth. I kinda caught the tail end (because I was at the front of the line trying to grab some grub).Overall, It is a great concept with great talent (music and curation of restaurants, chefs, etc.), but just very poorly planned. Crazy lines, no water available, no cell service and no wifi (yet they encourage you to download an app?) so you can’t find anyone. I feel for the producers… This shit is hard to get right, especially out of the gate, but I must say they really fucked a lot of stuff up.
This happened Saturday, in Extra Mooga land, and it was less a fist fight than one guy putting another in a "sleeper hold" while that woman in the white dress hit him in the face, She was pretty drunk, and the blows didn't do much, but the choking made the victim pass out for a few seconds (that's why he's getting up off the floor). The couple who beat him were out of control assholes, though admittedly I didn't see what prompted their attack. Presumably it was, in fact, about cutting the line for fried chicken, which was less a line and more a scrum, in which the Blue Ribbon people would stupidly pop into the tent through different flaps with a tray of chicken, prompting the well-heeled ($250 a pop in Extra Mooga!) to go insane trying to get their "free" two tiny pieces of chicken on a plate. You can see the back on the couple's heads in this shot, lower left, right before the "fight". Note how much fun everyone's having, packed into the corner of the tent DESPERATE for food! http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlynchnyc/723111…
That blonde girl was vile. I didn't see exactly what started the fight, but I saw her bullying the girl in front of her in line. She made fun of her weight and called her a bitch, then her friend put his hand on her ass and they giggled. I've never seen people behave like that before. This wasn't googa mooga's fault, it was just a few scum bags that hopefully got arrested.
This was not the festival producers' first festival. They're the same producers behind Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. They f'ed this up; there's no other way to say it. I was there Saturday and it was the worst outdoor event/festival experience of my life.
I think this thing got a lot of unnecessary complaints from the self righteous, granted I didn't pay $250 to experience a chicken shortage (#firstworldproblems). I was part of general admission, only waited in 1 line for longer than 30 minutes, yet still ate a lot, drank a lot, and got to hear The fucking Roots live, which is always a blast.
I wish people would stop bitching, it's hard enough to get a festival like this in our stomping grounds, let alone do it right the very first time. How about some support an positive press so we can get more shit like this happening within earshot?