The Fate of Iconic Music Festival Woodstock50 Looms Around Legal Battles, Unscheduled Ticketing, Unclear Permits and Backed Out Artists

13-Jun-2019

The famous Woodstock music festival in 1969 came as peace console for Americans longing for the truce after the Vietnam war.  Once again, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of this festival in 2019, event organizers have extravaganza plans to celebrate it. But apparently, the plan went disheveled when sponsors, artists, and venue owner abandoned the festival involving the legal battle between organizers and sponsors.

The whole controversy began when festival chief investor Dentsu Aegis Network on April 29, 2019, who had been funding the festival through their subsidiary Amplifi Live, announced that it was no longer funding the music festival and therefore that the event has been canceled. Dentsu Aegis ceased its involvement after the organizers reduced the capacity for the festival grounds from 100,000 people to 75,000 in order to accommodate campers, after initially promising the company a crowd of 150,000. Besides that the events headlining performers - The Black Keys, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel pulled themselves out from Woodstock 50's final lineup.

Another reason, the organizers faced a challenge as festival never officially released tickets on scheduled date owing to insufficient permits surfaced. To date, tickets are still not available to purchase following the postponement of the on-sale date. On May 1, Superfly, a production partner of the Woodstock organizers, also pulled out of the festival. On May 13, Dentsu Aegis' Amplifi Live subsidiary filed a counter-claim against Lang, in which the company argued that they had the right to take over the festival and cancel the event due to contractual breaches and logistical misrepresentation on Lang's part.  But the verdict from the court favored the organizers’ argument of right to organize the festival on any venue and stated Dentsu Aegis has no right to cancel the event. 

But it seems the trouble is not over for the organizers, on June 10, Watkins Glen International announced that it had canceled the contract for the Woodstock 50 festival and the event would no longer be held at the racetrack.

In the middle of this situation, the organizer keeping their spirit high stated on his Facebook page that, despite the loss of their financial backer, the Woodstock organizers would continue to plan the festival.

For more information, visit https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jun/02/woodstock-50-loses-stardust-court-battles

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