When Avant Gardner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, 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 out of the blue run out of cash. It bled money via a thousand small cuts, making a home of playing cards that lastly crashed down earlier in August.
The warning indicators had been written within the firm’s cost patterns. Avant Gardner skilled persistently excessive Days Past Phrases (a key metric measuring how late corporations pay their payments) over the 12 months previous to the chapter submitting, indicating “ongoing money stream 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 offered by Creditsafe. Whereas there was enchancment to 15-16 days in April and Might 2025, the determine climbed again to twenty days by June, signaling persistent liquidity challenges.
Extra troubling was the corporate’s commerce cost breakdown, which revealed a rising pile of “severely overdue” obligations, Bhalla mentioned. By March 2025, over 21% of payments had been 61-90 days overdue, whereas practically 1 / 4 remained unpaid for 91 days or extra as Avant Gardner struggled to satisfy operational bills. It was primarily monetary triage, the place distributors develop into unwitting lenders within the firm’s determined try to remain afloat.
The monetary disaster was compounded by operational setbacks, most notably contentious permit issues and safety 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 formidable plans for a revamped area in East Williamsburg, however the books painted an image that no quantity of selling may repair.
The renovation plans by no means materialized and Brooklyn Mirage’s proprietors in the end cancelled the venue’s complete 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 compelled.
Now, after ousting beleaguered CEO Josh Wyatt, Avant Gardner has put in famend nightlife veteran Gary Richards as its new chief govt “to stabilize the corporate’s funds and convey the Mirage again for 2026 and past.” A latest submitting for a Non permanent 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 will probably be watching Avant Gardner’s restructuring intently, not for the monetary engineering, however to see if the corporate can actually overcome its checkered past.
