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'Rotten Scam': NYC Food Fest Flops

State probe launched into the 'Fyre Festival' of pizza
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2017 10:22 AM CDT
'Rotten Scam': NYC Food Fest Flops
Pizza fest "victims" have their own Facebook page.   (Facebook)

Pizza lovers are blasting a Brooklyn food festival that apparently wasn't what it was sliced up to be. Fans who trekked to a "shady parking lot" for the New York City Pizza Festival on Saturday say they paid up to $75 for tickets, only to receive slices that were limp and cold, Gothamist reports. Some got no pizza at all. Now, the state Attorney General is looking into what one annoyed attendee calls a "rotten scam," per WNBC. Connell Burke, who, per PIX11, forked out $150 for two VIP tickets, tells NBC it was "like the people from Fyre Festival decided to throw a pizza party." Billed as a "day long celebration of the dough, cheese, tasty sauces and delicious toppings," per NPR, it was anything but, say attendees who dished on the festival's Facebook page. One attendee writes that he found three small tents serving up slices "smaller than my palm."

Another attendee gripes, "All we got was warm red wine that tasted like a--!" Instagram posts show a grim scene, with a long entry line snaking along a chain-link fence. The similarly hyped New York City Burger Festival was set at the same time and place, NPR notes, also noticeably absent of burgers. Pizza fest organizers apologized later on Saturday, citing "an incredible amount of delays" in delivering pies. "Give us our money back," one woman fumes on Facebook. The same organizer, Ishmael Osekre, was behind the botched Africa Food Festival last year, per Gothamist. Angry participants demanding refunds formed their own Facebook page, and AG Eric Schneiderman's office invited them to share their stories. "We are concerned about the online complaints that we've seen," a rep tells PIX11. (More pizza stories.)

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