Venice's FIFA Fan Zone promised a free World Cup block party. It didn't happen

In Venice Beach, some are outraged after they say a FIFA Fan Zone misled the public and disrupted their neighborhood.

The fan celebration by the beach took place at a city park and cost anywhere between $15 and $125 a ticket, but organizers had also advertised a block party and free area to go along with it. The license agreement for the event between organizers and the L.A.'s Recreation and Parks Department described an LED screen and two beer gardens that would be available to the public, free of charge.

Instead, no screens were outside the ticketed fan zone, which took place on July 10 and 11. Some were surprised when they showed up to the block party on Windward Avenue and found just a few tents and no way to watch the game besides ducking into a bar.

Alex Kissin, a Venice resident, attended a Rec and Parks meeting Thursday morning to complain that the Fan Zone didn't deliver.

"The park was effectively unavailable to the community for more than a week," said Kissin, who is also a member of the Venice Chamber of Commerce. "The free public, public elements described in the report simply did not materialize."

Event organizer John Cohn told LAist that around 2,500 free tickets were made available for the Fan Zone, but acknowledged that the free viewing party didn't happen.

" This was a spectacular event about which all of us should be proud," said Cohn, CEO of Venice Beach FWC, LLC, the company that put on the event. "Not only did we put a lot of smiles on faces of people all across Venice and Los Angeles, but I think that this gave an opportunity for Venice to put a positive face on the world."

Cohn said that he had to change plans for the free viewing area after LAPD prohibited plans to put up screens showing the matches on the closed-down street, citing concerns about security and crowd control.

" We actually had planned a free block party along Windward," he said. "It had been included in our planning, and LAPD scotched it."

LAPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The License Agreement with the city had also included plans for a "free Health and Wellness Fair" in Windward Plaza on July 12, the day after the Fan Zone ended. But that event required a ticket, too, which Cohn said cost between $25 and $90.

Both event organizers and representatives for the Recreation and Parks Department said that there was a last-minute change in who would put on the Fan Zone, which caused a big organizational challenge.

Cohn, who runs Venice Soleil Nails & Spa, said Councilmember Traci Park's office approached him about taking over the fan zone after the original person who won the FIFA bid pulled out just around ten weeks before the World Cup.

Sonya Young Jimenez, a Recreation and Parks Department superintendent, told the Rec and Parks Commissioners Thursday that there would be an after-action meeting to figure out what could have been done differently.

" I know with the Olympics coming, we want to use this as a way to make it better for next time," she said.

"This was an important test run for the future of Venice Beach. Just a few years ago, an event of this scale would have been impossible to imagine," Pete Brown, a spokesperson for Traci Park's office said in statement. "We'll build on what worked, improve where we can, and continue demonstrating that Venice Beach can successfully host world-class events that benefit our local businesses, our residents, and our city."