It seems that the Woodstock 50 festival, which would have been commemorating the 50th anniversary of the original 1969 Woodstock, is officially dead in the water. From the absolute nightmare of the 1999 Woodstock and the now 2019 failure, it seems that Woodstock is destined to not have a proper modern day revival that celebrates the original peace and love spirit of the first.
However, the cancelation did not come completely out of the blue. There had been a long series of miss-steps by event staff that definitely contributed to the event’s downfall. The event’s main organizer, Michael Lang, who was a producer for the original Woodstock, has been reported as handling the anniversary festival questionably.
Some were sceptical of Woodstock’s brand power in the modern day, as today’s festival market is fierce seemingly oversaturated, as opposed to Woodstock’s original 1969 launch where the live music landscape was extremely different.
Even with this in mind, the event was able to book some big names, including Miley Cyrus, Jay-Z, The Killers, Santana, and Imagine Dragons just to name a few. But looking back at the info that would leak out over the months leading up to the cancellation, it was obvious that big names alone couldn’t save the project.
The series of setbacks and mishandlings the event received paints a picture of how it ended the way it did. Some notable setbacks include the announcement coming in March but tickets not going on sale until late April, not acquiring proper permits and their investor Dentsu subsequently pulling out, and promising buyers a venue accommodating 100,000 people when in reality could only accommodate less than 65,000.
With the multiple setbacks the throwback festival faced, some obviously draw comparisons to 2017’s Fyre Festival. However, it doesn’t seem like Michael Lang’s failed Woodstock draws from the same scam based tactics as Billy McFarland had with Fyre. Instead, it seems that Woodstock 50 and Michael Lang weren’t able to evolve passed a half a century old way of organizing festivals.
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