Is This The Solution To GoogaMooga-Type Problems In Prospect Park?

If you are walking around Prospect Park on Saturday, June 28 between 5 and 10pm, you may encounter something a little bit more bourgeois than expected. In fact, probably a lot more. Almost 5,000 people are expected to be in the park, dressed all in white, lined up at table clothed tables, downing Champagne in a romantic blur of starlight and candlesticks.

HandMade Events, in partnership with Acura and the Prospect Park Alliance, are bringing their PopUp Dinner series to Brooklyn–this time to feature a secret musical artist who apparently “played to a sold out crowd at Prospect Park in 2013.”

Tickets are now on sale for $35, which essentially buys a seat at one of the tables provided by HandMade, and all proceeds will be going to the Prospect Park Alliance. Decorations, such as the tablecloth and candles, as well as the food and drink, the participants bring themselves.

In the past, large, ticketed events such as this one have caused some spurn from the community. The Great GoogaMooga flooded Prospect Park with foodies on the prowl, limiting sections of the public space to paying customers only, and damaging sections of grass. Next month’s mob will be a fraction of the 40,000 people who were estimated to have come for GoogaMooga, but it’s still quite a few people heading to the park for the night.

What are your thoughts on events like this–do they have redeeming qualities that GoogaMooga didn’t? Would you pay $35 to have a picnic wearing something you’d likely (okay, we’d likely) stain, as long as it was going to a good cause? Should park-goers be allowed to drink alcohol if they pay for such an event, but not otherwise? And do you think the grass will make it out alive?

Photo via HandMade Events