GOVERNORS ISLAND — Frustrated food vendors who participated in a music festival last month say they lost both money and product because the turnout was far smaller than anticipated — and now they're demanding refunds.
Escape Music Festival, which was held Oct. 11 and 12 at Governors Beach Club after being forced to relocate to a smaller venue, drew roughly 5,000 people over the course of both days, organizers said.
That number was much less than the venue’s capacity and “estimated” number of attendees, which was about 4,000 to 4,800 people per day. The show's original venue in Red Hook was slated to handle up to 8,000 concert-goers.
While Balearic Entertainment, the festival’s organizer, did not guarantee a minimum number of ticket sales, vendors said they rely on projections when prepping food servings for an event.
“It’s actually the only data we have to go by," said Ian Vernon, founder of Home Frite, which took part in Escape.
At least six of the 10 vendors — including Home Frite, Sunday Gravy NYC, Manila Girl and Dan and John’s Wings — said they suffered heavy losses because of Escape.
The small business owners are now demanding a refund of the $1,500 rental fee they were asked to pay by Balearic Entertainment.
Steven Smith, owner of Sunday Gravy, said he recorded a net loss of $6,500, including the rental fee, from the festival.
“I have a $1,500 bread bill,” said Smith, who prepared about 1,000 meatballs for the event, adding that he also incurred costs for staffing.
Manila Girl, which specializes in Filipino cuisine, lost about $2,500 and had to throw away 400 servings of food, according to owner Rose Kozarov, who called for an additional 25 percent of the losses to be refunded.
“With the promise of so many attendees, we thought we would make the money back, no problem,” said John Henninger, owner of Dan and John’s Wings, which he said lost $2,500.
According to emails obtained by DNAinfo New York, festival founder Merritt Quirk blamed a “serious communication problem” between vendors and Rayhan Razzaque, who Balearic hired to coordinate the food side of the festival.
"It's unfortunate that we didn't have more fans," Quirk said in the email chain. "You didn't get good, current information, and that definitely didn't come from me or my team. If you were promised things, I'm sorry about that but again, I didn't make any promises on attendance."
Quirk also said in emails that 3,000 tickets were sold and 2,000 were giveaways. It wasn't clear from the emails how many of those tickets were two-day passes or one-day passes.
Quirk declined to comment on the vendors' complaints.
Vendors said they dealt almost exclusively with Razzaque in lieu of Balearic employees.
But Razzaque, a partner at venture capital firm Conductive, blamed the mismanagement on Balearic and the minimal amount of information he was given to relay to the vendors.
Razzaque, who told vendors that the “estimated” number of concertgoers would be close to 5,000 people per day, said he was not told how many actual tickets were sold.
“This is the part the vendors have to understand from my perspective,” Razzaque said. “I only told them what I was told.”
Razzaque brought in two vendors his firm had invested in — Mighty Balls and the Poffertjes Man. Part of the money Razzaque said he would have received from Balearic for his services was used to cover the rental fees for those businesses.
“I think refunding the rent is totally fair,” he explained. “But beyond that… no festival will do that.”
A representative from Balearic Entertainment told DNAinfo that the company looked into refunding the food vendor fees “BUT ULTIMATELY DECIDED NOT TO,” according to an email.
“IT’S NEVER IDEAL WHEN A STAKEHOLDER'S RETURN IS LESS THAN THEY WANT, BUT WE FEEL WE PROPERLY REPRESENTED THE RISKS AND IT’S UP TO EACH VENDOR TO DECIDE IF THE FEE IS WORTH IT,” the music festival production company said in an email.
“WE INCURRED SIGNIFICANT FIXED COSTS TO HOST AND MARKET THESE VENDORS.”
The company did say it would offer vendors credit toward future event fees.
But the alleged missteps have already cost Balearic and Razzaque their reputation among participating food vendors.
“I know that I won’t ever do business with them again,” said Henninger of Dan and John's Wings.
Escape, which featured performances by Moby, ASTR and STRFKR, was initially slated for Pier 9A at the Red Hook Container Terminal, which could hold up to 8,000 people.
With the possibility of such a big audience, the event's “premium” $1,500 rental fee seemed “worthwhile,” said Smith of Sunday Gravy’s.
But only a few weeks before the event, organizers had to change the concert’s venue after they failed to receive permission from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the Terminal.
The venue capacity dropped from 8,000 to roughly 4,800 when Escape moved to Governors Beach Club.
The fee stayed in place with Razzaque convincing vendors that they would still be able to make their money back, vendors said.
“They made it sound like it was going to be a very big show,” Home Frite’s Vernon said. “We were prepared to sell a lot.”
