The Top 15 Tweets About the GoogaMooga Cancellation

by Greg Morabito May 19, 2013, 1:00pm EDT

The people at Superfly Presents pulled the plug on day three of The Great GoogaMooga food and music festival at around noon today because of bad weather. In a statement, Superfly explains that the group and the Parks Department made the decision "in the interest of safety and prevention of damage to the park grounds." Many of the chefs and restaurateurs that were participating in the fest voiced their thoughts about this on Twitter, and some of the city's big writers and critics also commented on the news this afternoon. Find a roundup of the top 15 tweets below, as well as information from Superfly co-founder Jonathan Mayers about how the company plans to work with the vendors to make up for day three.

This afternoon, Eater asked Superfly co-founder Jonathan Mayers if the company is going to offer any reimbursement to the restaurants that prepared food and set up shop today. His response:

Well, right now, we're closing down operations, but we'll be working with the restaurants, sitting down with them, and working through the issues. We have a good track record of being fair with vendors, and artists. Our whole intention behind doing this festival was to celebrate these restaurants and local business...We want to support and be a good partner with these restaurants. We want to do the right thing. We're still finalizing things and assessing operations.

So, no word yet on whether the vendors will actually get any financial help to cover the food and labor costs from today. But if you are one of the unlucky vendors who set up shop today only to find out that the event was cancelled, expect a call from someone at Superfly soon. Christophe Hille of Northern Spy Food Co. tells EV Grieve that his restaurant lost around $10,000 this weekend.
UPDATE: Superfly also passes on this statement: "GoogaMooga is all about supporting local businesses and our intention is to do right by each vendor. In the coming days, we will be sitting down with all our partners to find financial solutions."

Here's how the news of the cancellation played out on Twitter:

Mile End, right before the gates were supposed to open:

Superfly announcing the cancellation and the refund policy:

One festival goer points out that Superfly sent out an announcement about ticket availability this morning:

From Allison Robicelli:

Chef Andrew Carmellini:

One of the members of De La Soul sends a message to fans:

Northern Spy Food Co.:

Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton:
Mr. Sutton offers more thoughts on GoogaMooga on his blog, The Bad Deal: "Maybe we don't really need GoogaMooga's particular brand of an NYC food festival because maybe it's just bringing together NYC restaurants we can already visit any day of the week, except here, they're outside...Maybe restaurants will realize this could all be harmful to their brands and harmful long established customer relationships?"