bad ideas

New York’s First BrunchCon Was a Drunken Hellscape

Preparing to “brunch so hard.” Photo: Debra Morrison/BrunchCon

More proof it’s wise to avoid any and all New York events built around drinking alcohol and ending in “Con”: The city’s first-ever BrunchCon went down yesterday, with 2,250 attendees and an open mimosa bar, so it’s terribly surprising that things went awry. The event was held inside Brooklyn’s Grand Prospect Hall, and the food was mostly sample-size morsels spread among more than 50 vendors (Bricolage, Cafe Grumpy, House of Mac, Manousheh, a boozy doughnut maker called the Donutologist).

An event trailer, set to LMFAO’s “Champagne Showers,” shows welcome balloons that say, “Cheers Bitches” and “Let’s Get Drunk,” and enough Korbel to fuel a week’s worth of hangovers. Ticket holders were promised a chance to “brunch so hard,” but it appears organizers oversold the event. By a lot.

Metro sent a brave reporter to the scene, who reports that attendees who paid between $55 and $95 apiece to get in were “mostly treated to the worst part of brunch: waiting.” The line to enter apparently took up to 90 minutes, and some people managed to only visit a grand total of four stands once they got in. Garbage cans overflowed, people stacked plates on tables and chairs, and the marble floor “was made even more slick” by spilled drinks. Metro says event staff who didn’t appear to be dressed for janitorial duties eventually had to police the mess. One group of three pregnant women say they felt “unsafe” after being “shoved out of the way multiple times by drunk people.”

The event didn’t even end before the complaints started spilling onto Twitter:

One attendee suggests it could be the perfect event for one type of person, though:

New York’s First BrunchCon Was a Drunken Hellscape