On New Year’s Day, outlets announced Brooklyn Mirage had been sold to the group behind Pacha. Three weeks later, the creditors’ committee told a Delaware judge the deal they were promised had been quietly gutted by Axar — and that without that very press leak, no one in the courtroom would have known.

In an industrial stretch of East Williamsburg, Avant Gardner emerged in 2017 under the vision of Jürgen “Billy” Bildstein. What began as a fleeting pop-up concept found permanence with the opening of the Brooklyn Mirage - a sprawling outdoor venue whose ambitious production and scale set it apart from the outset. Over the next two years, additional halls rose beside it: The Great Hall, cavernous and versatile, and Kings Hall, intimate and subterranean. Together, the complex offered a new blueprint for year-round nightlife. But the by early 2025 the venue saw its first needles in coffin and by August 4, Avant Gardner, LLC (“Avant Gardner”), the operator of Brooklyn Mirage, together with its affiliated entities filed for bankruptcy.