Governors Ball may have some major competition this year. It has been one of the leading NYC-local summer festival for 5 years, but for 2016, the promoters behind large scale festival Coachella are bringing a new event to Randall's Island Park. Panorama is forecasted to have a huge draw and is slated to happen too soon after Governors Ball for the promoters to be comfortable. Panorama will run from July 22-24, a mere two months after Governors Ball. The creators of the festival have also blasted Panorama promoters Goldenvoice for bringing Panorama to NYC.
This past October, Governors Ball also released to petition requesting that the city of New York and Mayor Bill de Blasio bar Panorama for the NYC festival market before the festival was officially announced. The original argument was that Panorama had requested the same dates as Governor's Ball and that it would be cutting into their ticket sales, but the complaint remains in place as Panorama is only occurring a mere seven weeks after.
Governors Ball representative and Founders Entertainment partner, Tom Russell, released a statement to Billboard that first asserted their confidence in the tried and proven festival but also expressed their disappointment at the inclusion of Panorama to the summer line-up, stating, "This is a short-sighted and disappointing solution. The city needs a long-term strategy for approving music festivals that ensures it is maximizing the economic and community impact of these events. Scheduling two same-genre festivals on top of each other like this makes it difficult to provide the maximum benefit to its fans, its neighbors and taxpayers."
Mark Shulman, festival producer of Goldenvoice, additionally released a statement to the publication which read, "New York City has 12.5 million residents, plus an enormous number of domestic and international visitors, who keep our many sports arenas, music venues, museums, theaters and restaurants at capacity each night. NYC sustains multiple music festivals and Panorama will add one additional entertainment option over the summer."
Promoters Goldenvoice are showcasing Panorama as, "three days of music, art, technology and local food offerings." The name "Panorama" was pulled from Panorama of the City of New York, which is a 10,000 square foot to scale model of the Queens metropolis.
