Hi, everyone! For those of you who missed it, the planned Woodstock 50 festival recieved its final nail in the coffin this past weekend. Original Woodstock co-founder and 50 exec Michael Lang finally announced that the festival will be called off.
He deemed it nearly “impossible” to happen after being plagued with venue issues and abundant financial troubles in months leading up to the festival. Today, let’s take a look back at what went wrong:
*If you guys read my previous op-ed that I published in May, you will get a better background about what’s going on with this event.*
The shadiness with Woodstock began back in late April, when ticket sales for the festival FINALLY went up.
After one of the event’s financial partners, Japanese PR company Dentsu, Inc., withdrew $17 million of funding. Their reason for doing so? The budget was inflating rapidly, the planners had an underequipped venue, and there were safety concerns left and right.
Their decision seemed to be smart, but Mr. Lang was incredibly outraged. He began accusing the company of “swiping the money” and “suffocating Woodstock” in a publicly released five-page tirade.
Facing a tight deadline, the Woodstock boss needed to come up with $30 million in cash in order to keep the festival afloat in early May. Fortunately, he was able to acquire the money and continue making the festival happen.
Woodstock 50 was scheduled to take place at the original location of Watkins Glen, New York. However, Lang was warned multiple times to not do it in that area due to the fact that it was incredibly difficult to get a health and safety permit for such a remote area. As a result, the town drew out of supporting the festival in June.
After failing to get a permit for another venue in Vernon, New York (115 miles northwest from Watkins Glen), the promoters were scrambling quickly to get this festival to the public. It wasn’t until July 25- three weeks before the festival was supposed to happen- before a guardian angel stepped in to save the drowning festival.
Famous outdoor music venue Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland was the answer. Unfortunately, the problem with MPP is that it has about a 30,000 seating capacity, which is a fraction of the six-figure crowd Woodstock was anticipating.
At this point, another glowing problem arised. Sure, there’s a venue… but a significant portion of the lineup had already withdrawn due to the chaotic nature surrounding Woodstock 50.
The festival had a promising- but confusing lineup of artists, with the likes of Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper, the Black Keys, Imagine Dragons, as well as original Woodstock performers like John Fogerty Santana. Most had already cancelled before this venue had been announced.
What’s even crazier, you might ask? The artists who were supposed to perform are STILL getting paid! The executives thought it would be smart to pay their artists up front, which leaves them even further in the red at the end of it all. The original cost of the lineup was around $32 million, according to court records.
It was time for Lang to face the music. This festival was so badly butchered, and could not go on. So, he publicly announced that the festival would not be occurring on July 31. “We just ran out of time,” he said in an interview.
To say they “ran out of time” is an understatement. The defiant executive would not give up on his vision to keep the spirit of Woodstock alive. Consequently, he had to deal with almost seven months with his dream imploding before his eyes.
While it may not have been as corrupt or as disastrous the Fyre Festival, Woodstock 50 will go down in history on how not to do a music festival.
I had made multiple predictions in the past on this festival not doing well, even before all of its mishaps were in the public eye. It seems kind of weird that Lang would keep fighting for this festival to happen, especially because they didn’t have a venue or lineup ready three weeks before the festival. He should have just dropped everything after not getting it to happen in two of the upstate New York venues. Hell, maybe after having all of your main artists drop out. Sadly, Lang will now get on his hands and knees and beg artists to donate 10% of their fees to a non-profit group called HeadCount. There’s also rumors of a free benefit show for that company as well. While it’s disappointing to see such a cherished event so brutally demolished, you just have to sit and scratch your head at Lang’s obstinacy and sheer oblivious nature to the failure the festival had leading up to its demise.
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