Alex Greene Films: V2Lab: Mystery Meat 3 video coverage
Just as we all expected the V2lab Mystery Meat 3 shut down Orlando. Regardless of what anyone says about this event I will always tip my hat and be motivated by Ravi Angard and the V2lab team. From the first day I spoke to Ravi he has held to his guns about having a free to the public show. Not only has he done that, but he has managed to have one of the biggest automotive events I myself have ever witnessed. Organizing an event is a headache no matter what the scale of it is. Being able to bring 75,000 people to a city is just unreal. If anyone reading this has never heard of V2lab take this time and check them out at www.V2lab.com.
Today Alex Greene posted up his creative video of the event. The creativity behind this video is perfect. Enjoy..
V2Lab // Mystery Meat 3 from Alex Greene on Vimeo.
There was a lot of confusion as to why the event ended as it did, and what was going on throughout the day. Here is a summary of all the events that happened that day from Ravi himself:
Okay so now that some of the dust has settled and I am reading random rumors and things lol I am going to clear up as much as I can (That I know about)! I’ll throw details both positive and negative here.
> First off in awesome news – We got word today from the City of Orlando that at any given time during the event there were 75,000 to 100,000 people in attendance (75,000 being the lowest) (So there were over 100k people who attended in total).
> The burnouts in the street were not the main issue – the police were okay with a little bit of chirping and whatever else > however this is what contributed to the removal of people from under I4. People were standing around egging on people to do burnouts or spin tires or whatever it may be – in the street – to the point people had literally blocked lanes of traffic while standing in the road. One female Officer tried to go over and tell people to get off the street – most didn’t pay her any mind and some were even disrespectful. Then myself & some of my staff tried to walk through and tell people to get on the sidewalk – I was on my bike rolling through saying please stand on the sidewalk – some people backed up; but I was met by one kid who said “There are to many of us – they can’t shut us down – Fuck them” – That is the same attitude that got everything fucked up. That statement by itself is 100x worse then any burnout could ever be. When the El Camino did a burnout – he tapped someone and the Bike-Cop decided it was time to put an end to the burnouts. The El Camino didn’t even get a ticket. The cops gave him a warning and sent him on his way -HOWEVER – during the process where the police officer pulled in front of him to tell him to stop – the Crowd formed a huge circle around the cop and began yelling obscenities at the Officer (Not even waiting for the situation to play out). Then as the Officer began to leave some idiots decided to throw bottles at the cop. As a direct result of that and the guy getting hit by the car – they shut the road (Garland) down to stop the burnouts / clear traffic. At this point the meet was still going fine – everything was still okay but things were on thin ice. Those kids who were standing around watching burnouts or whatever decided – well if the action isn’t in the streets – it must be under the bridge – so they returned to their cars and started doing burnouts in the crowded under i-4 parking area. The Captain of the Police dept. walked outside from the Police station which is (and this in itself will explain how stupid some people are) is DIRECTLY across the street from the under I4 Parking lot and he said to us – I walked out and I couldn’t see through the under I4 Parking lot – I thought something was on fire because there was so much smoke. As a direct result of this and another issue (which will be addressed at a later time) – The Police dept decided it was time to close out the under the bridge parking and remove everyone – essentially saving people from themselves or from someone getting hit by someone doing a burnout. They had to contain that.
> The issue here is we as fellow enthusiasts didn’t stop to tell people doing dumb shit – we allowed the masses of people who aren’t necessarily car people to egg it on.
> After that a couple of Officers had told the vendors it was time to close up and leave and whatever else – > But we spoke to the Captain of the Police dept and he let us continue onward with our event and selling merchandise – Some areas were asked to move into the vendor lot to avoid any further issue – Some chose to just leave. We were there until 4pm and more and more people cycled back through the event at later times after the highway parking was cleared out. Even Shaq came out.
> The Orlando Police department deserves all the praise in the world for dealing with the event and handling things the way they did. Every Officer that was on scene was hand picked by my business partner and 110% on our side the entire event. There was nothing we could do to stop them from clearing out the under I-4 parking due to the amount of people that were totally out of control though. We may never see that level of cooperation from any Police Dept. ever again – but that lies entirely in the hands of those who attend the next event.
> Regardless of the “official event times” of 9am to 4pm – the event basically started at 6am and the second vendors were done setting up (as early as 7am) people were at their tables with cash in hand ready to go. (awesome).
> As a direct result of all of this – there will not be another Mystery Meat in Downtown Orlando. The City of Orlando has basically told us we’ve out grown the area and to ‘find somewhere else’ – sorry to anyone who was hoping for another ‘downtown event’ – That boat has sailed.
> I was totally on the fence about doing another event due to some of the negative responses – but there has been overwhelming positive response and I am looking for a new venue to do bigger and more fun stuff – Remember the event has always been for you guys.
> Some have said to charge and select cars and do this and that – The V2lab ‘Meats’ have never been about that – I don’t care how “hooked up” your car is or what brand of wheels you have or how low your car is – I just want everyone to have a great time and enjoy car culture. The event is set up in such a way that everyone can feel equal while trying to help boost the small car businesses of Florida and surrounding areas. It’s also meant help them make money leading up ( #v2labprep ) to the event and then help them get the exposure needed to continue to grow through-out the year (from the event). The reality of the situation is I barely make anything from the Mystery Meat events because the event itself is super expensive to put together. I just want car-culture to thrive and people to want to join our culture as opposed to hating it for the negative light we so frequently get placed in. We do it for the love of cars and people – plain and simple.
All that being said – We will figure out what to do next and go from there and as before I hope everyone had a great time – Although I am super sore from riding around on my bike back and forth to get everything situated – I had an awesome time and I want to thank everyone who came out, purchased merchandise, and supported the event.
If you didn’t have fun.. sorry? maybe try laser tag or something?
Thank you guys for coming out and we hope to see you next time – whenever / where ever that may be & Special thanks to all of our vendors, artists, and friends who helped make this event possible.
– Ravi Angard
