25 March 2025 | Photos: Brooklyn Mirage
Redesigned venue boosts dance floor capacity from 4,500 to nearly 6,250
For over a decade, Brooklyn Mirage has stood as a towering presence in New York’s nightlife scene, its expansive 7,430-square-metre footprint setting the stage for everything from multi-room Boiler Room takeovers to sprawling open-air techno spectacles. This May, the outdoor heart of the Avant Gardner complex will reopen with a striking new look, drawing from the architectural language of opera houses to deliver enhanced grandeur, increased capacity and upgraded security systems.
The dance floor will now accommodate up to 6,250 people—up from its previous limit of 4,500—making it, as newly appointed CEO Josh Wyatt describes, “the largest in New York City.” The redesign, rooted in what Wyatt terms “operatic grandeur,” reimagines the Mirage as an “open-air sanctuary” that blends theatrical elegance with large-scale functionality.
Central to this new vision is the introduction of a vast timber canopy structure, measuring an impressive 60 by 53 metres and suspended 20 metres above the audience. This architectural feat ranks among the largest of its kind in the United States and is set to redefine the visual experience for attendees.
Long celebrated for its immersive 270-degree LED video wall, the Mirage is taking things further with the addition of a kinetic shutter system. This innovation allows the LED display to vanish entirely at will, echoing the venue’s early days when visuals took a back seat to atmosphere. The venue’s sonic experience is also being fine-tuned: a new network of 100 carefully calibrated speakers and subwoofers will deliver consistent, high-fidelity sound across every corner of the space.
Adding to the venue’s artistic ambitions, Brooklyn Mirage is launching a New Media Art Program, which will invite both local and international artists to present cutting-edge work onsite. With a full summer programme in the pipeline, the venue promises a season of dynamic crossovers between music, architecture and digital art. Full event listings can be found on Brooklyn Mirage’s official website.
