Woodstock 50 Said To Face Financial Woes
With Woodstock 50 scheduled to take place in just six months, event organizers have not released an initial lineup.
Woodstock 50, intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the iconic Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, is scheduled to take place from 16-18 in Watkins Glen in Upstate New York a few miles from the original festival grounds.
Since the festival was first announced in January, few additional details about the event have come to light, leading to speculation about the event’s financial stability. According to a report in music news site Hits Daily Double, the delay in updates about the festival are due to “issues regarding the raising of money and venue capacity.”
According to HDD, the unofficial lineup for Woodstock 50 includes Dead & Co., The Killers, Miley Cyrus, Santana, The Black Keys, Chance the Rapper, Jay-Z, Imagine Dragons and Halsey but per HDD, only a few of the acts have received their full guarantees. Santana was also announced for a commemorative concert at Bethel Woods during Woodstock weekend.
The festival is being produced by Woodstock Ventures, formed via a partnership between three of the original Woodstock producers, Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman, and John Roberts’ family, with financial backing from Dentsu Aegis Network, a division of the Japanese advertising giant Dentsu, which will also assist with marketing and sponsorship via affiliated agencies.
Lang told the New York Times in January that he envisioned a large-scale event and anticipates selling 100,000 three-day passes, with most attendees camping on site. At the time, he declined to discuss the budget for the festival, but told the Times: “We paid $135,000 for all of our talent in 1969. Times have changed.”
In a statement provided to CelebrityAccess, Lang appeared to downplay the rumors but did not quite deny them.
“There’s always been lots of rumors around Woodstock. We have excellent partners and an incredible talent lineup of over 80 artists which will be announced within the next couple of weeks. We’re preparing a once in a lifetime event,” Lang said.
