When Avant Gardner filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety, it marked the tip of a slow-motion monetary collapse that had been unfolding for over a 12 months.
It appears the corporate behind Brooklyn Mirage, one in every of New York’s most beloved digital music venues, didn’t simply abruptly run out of cash. It bled money by means of a thousand small cuts, making a home of playing cards that lastly crashed down earlier in August.
The warning indicators have been written within the firm’s fee patterns. Avant Gardner skilled constantly excessive Days Past Phrases (a key metric measuring how late firms pay their payments) over the 12 months previous to the chapter submitting, indicating “ongoing money circulate instability,” Ragini Bhalla, Creditsafe’s Head of Model and spokesperson, tells EDM.com.
Avant Gardner’s DBT began at a regarding 43 days in August 2024, per information supplied by Creditsafe. Whereas there was enchancment to 15-16 days in April and Could 2025, the determine climbed again to twenty days by June, signaling persistent liquidity challenges.
Extra troubling was the corporate’s commerce fee breakdown, which revealed a rising pile of “severely overdue” obligations, Bhalla mentioned. By March 2025, over 21% of payments have been 61-90 days overdue, whereas practically 1 / 4 remained unpaid for 91 days or extra as Avant Gardner struggled to fulfill operational bills. It was basically monetary triage, the place distributors change into unwitting lenders within the firm’s determined try to remain afloat.
The monetary disaster was compounded by operational setbacks, most notably contentious allow points and security inspection failures that prevented the opening of Avant Gardner’s newly constructed Brooklyn Mirage venue for the 2025 season after a $30 million redesign. The corporate had bold plans for a revamped house in East Williamsburg, however the books painted an image that no quantity of promoting may repair.
The renovation plans by no means materialized and Brooklyn Mirage’s proprietors in the end cancelled the venue’s whole season of exhibits, dealing a demise knell to its anticipated revenues. With $155.3 million in debt and no clear path to profitability, Avant Gardner’s hand was pressured.
Now, after ousting beleaguered CEO Josh Wyatt, Avant Gardner has put in famend nightlife veteran Gary Richards as its new chief government “to stabilize the corporate’s funds and produce the Mirage again for 2026 and past.” A current submitting for a Momentary Place of Meeting Certificates with the New York Metropolis Division of Buildings requests activation starting June 1st, 2026.
Within the meantime, the stateside digital dance music neighborhood might be watching Avant Gardner’s restructuring intently, not for the monetary engineering, however to see if the corporate can actually overcome its checkered previous.
