Pacha’s parent company moves to acquire Avant Gardner assets, marking a structural shift in New York nightlife
Another chapter closes in the Brooklyn Mirage saga. This time, not with a reopening, but with absorption.
According to industry sources, FIVE Holdings, the Dubai-based group behind the global Pacha brand, is set to finalize a deal with Axar Capital Management to acquire Avant Gardner and its flagship asset, Brooklyn Mirage. The transaction is expected to become official on January 1, with sources indicating a formal close in the early afternoon.
Axar, a longtime creditor of Avant Gardner, recently received bankruptcy court approval to acquire the majority of the company’s assets following a Chapter 11 filing last August. The sale price, reportedly well below market value, triggered immediate legal action from other lenders, who accused Axar of misrepresenting Avant Gardner’s financial condition during the $110 million transaction, as reported by Bloomberg.
What began as a venue crisis now ends as a consolidation play.
Brooklyn Mirage, once positioned as a cornerstone of New York’s large-scale electronic music ecosystem, never reopened after a $30 million renovation failed to pass safety inspections. By October, Avant Gardner had filed for demolition permits. The city pushed back. Objections from the Department of Buildings remain unresolved more than two months later.
The venue never came back online.
The brand never recovered trust.
The asset changed hands.
Sources close to the deal stress that this is not simply a change of ownership, but a reconfiguration of power. The entrance of a globally capitalized nightlife group into one of New York’s most visible electronic music spaces signals a new phase: fewer independents, higher financial pressure, and a market increasingly shaped by capital rather than community.
With Pacha’s backing, New York’s talent market is expected to inflate rapidly. Larger guarantees, aggressive bookings, and brand-driven leverage will likely disadvantage independent promoters still navigating refund obligations from canceled Mirage events and the unresolved fallout of Electric Zoo.
This is not an isolated case.
It is a pattern.
When hedge funds and global hospitality groups enter electronic music, venues stop behaving like cultural institutions and start functioning like financial instruments. Growth accelerates. Risk concentrates. Accountability diffuses.
Pacha is no stranger to New York. The brand previously operated Pacha NYC in Hell’s Kitchen from 2005 to 2016 before exiting the market. Its return comes under a different structure, backed by FIVE Holdings, controlled by Kabir Mulchandani. Mulchandani was arrested in Dubai in 2009 on fraud and embezzlement charges and detained for 140 days before being fully cleared.
Now, fifteen years later, Pacha is back.
Not as a club.
As a consolidation force.
The Mirage era is over.
What replaces it will not be neutral.
