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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Vegandale visitors were left ‘cranky and miserable’ after the festival struggled to keep up with tickets and resources.
The popular traveling food and music event, which is expected to attract 100,000 people across North American cities this year, sparked widespread backlash from thousands of attendees who showed up at Citi Field in Queens on Saturday.
Attendees had paid from $15 for general admission to $90 for V.I.P. access, eager to sample some vegan delicacies and listen to New York rapper GloRilla’s set. However, the festival was woefully underprepared for the crowds.
“We were starving and cranky and miserable,” Queens graphic designer Rocco Marrongelli told the New York Times. “I don’t think they had the manpower to face the waves of vegans that were trying to crash those gates.”
Marrongelli had waited in line for over an hour before giving up and going home, much like many who had hoped to get in but were instead met with a lengthy ticketing process caused by too few metal detectors and festival organizers forgoing crowd control.
Those who had gotten struggled to find drinking water and shade amid the 84-degree weather, not to mention bathroom resources had run so low organizers had run out of toilet paper.
Many took to social media, with some X users likening Vegandale to the Fyre Festival, the 2017 luxury music festival infamous for stranding thousands of people on an island with nothing but disaster relief tents and mediocre food.
Meanwhile, Reddit posters encouraged attendees to report the event to City Hall. Despite the grumbling from some attendees, there were also positive posts about the event.
Vegandale, however, acknowledged that the setup could have been a lot better.
“We faced a few logistical challenges, which are part of working with a new venue,” said Jenna Lindsay, Vegandale’s vice president of communications and entertainment. She added that the team was aware they had to work out some kinks. “It was our first year at Citi Field, but the overall experience was really positive.”
This isn’t the first time the festival has drawn criticism. At last year’s New York event, the vegan community took issue with the headliner being Rick Ross, a rapper who owns several locations of the chicken restaurant chain Wingstop. Meanwhile, at the Chicago Vegandale in June of this year, a fight broke out during a Saweetie concert, causing what was reportedly a stampede.
