Vegandale is a traveling food and music event about all things vegan culture. A recent festival held in Queens, New York, had interminable lines, almost no water, and just an overall poor organization. It was such a mess that some attendees compared the event to 2017’s disastrous Fyre Festival (or worse).
Vegandale was held at Citi Field. Attendees paid anywhere between $15 for the cheapest ticket to $90 for VIP access. But poor event management is the ultimate equalizer. No matter how much people paid to get in, eager vegan foodies were stuck in hours-long lines to get into the event. Reportedly, planners didn’t put enough metal detectors at the entrance, so they created a natural choke point that pissed off a bunch of hungry people right off the bat.
It wasn’t much better once people were inside. Some attendees reported getting fed up with the long lines for food and leaving the event without eating anything.
It was a hot late-summer day made even worse by a lack of readily available water, which vendors apparently weren’t allowed to sell, according to attendees. There was no shade or seating to get some reprieve. The only option was to stand and broil. Some folks fainted. If you needed a bathroom break because that vegan tika masala was a little too spicy for your delicate constitution, well, good luck finding toilet paper because it ran out quickly, too.
It wasn’t just a mess from the attendee’s standpoint. Vendors—who in previous years paid a flat fee of $1,000—were charged a 30 percent commission. One vendor said the $1,000 he paid before jumped to around $3,000 now. In fairness, that doesn’t sound nearly as bad as the woman who lost her entire $50,000 life savings catering for Fyre Festival. Sounds super annoying, though!
The traveling food event will head to Dallas next, with stops in Los Angeles and Miami in the months to come. Plenty more chances to dodge the “vegan Fyre Festival” charges.
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The post Vegan Food Fest Turns Even More Hellish Than Normal appeared first on VICE.
