GoogaMooga attracted a crowd to Prospect Park last year. (Credit: Nate Jones/Metro)
The Great GoogaMooga is back.
The much-maligned festival, which took place for the first time last summer in Prospect Park, is afloat again despite a flood of bad reviews. Tickets go on sale today.
Organizers promised that they learned lessons from last year, when festival goers complained of endless lines, not getting enough of the much-anticipated food and bathrooms without toilet paper.
The organizers, Superfly Presents, which also set up the Bonnaroo festival, seemed to be aware of dimmed expectations, promising “a new, improved recipe’s for this year’s event.”
Organizers have taken pains to ensure the festival has a different vibe – they are not offering the $250 GoogaMooga tickets, which they ultimately refunded after the complaints.
Instead, they are offering $79.50 tickets for a VIP Cocktail Experience, with a place by the main stage and five artisanal cocktails by mixologist Julie Reiner.
“It’s fair to say we learned a lot last year,” they said, vowing to “transform Prospect Park into an amusement park of food, drink and music all weekend long.”
The festivities will begin May 17 with a concert headlined by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with The Flaming Lips and The Darkness.
Food from about 85 restaurants will include places like Momofuku Milk Bar, Red Hook Lobster Pound and Vinegar Hill House.
That will include vegetarian meals, after non-meat-eaters complained there were not enough options.
These restaurants will join more than 50 wineries and breweries.
Many Yelp reviews skewered the festival.
“The entire experience was horrendous,” a Queens attendee wrote, recounting a 20-minute line to enter the event, as well as an hour-plus line for a drink ticket and a two-hour wait for a beer.
Another reviewer wrote, “I actually started to tear up over how horribly executed this event was, I mean, I was enraged.”
But not all lamented the experience: a Brooklyn woman who said she arrived before the event opened encountered no lines.
“All in all a great day, and I can’t wait for the next one,” she wrote.
