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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Woodstocks 50th Anniversary Festival Cancelled

    Woodstocks 50th Anniversary Festival Cancelled

    Woodstock, as most know is one of the biggest music festivals ever held. A giant party on a local dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains, northwest of New York City hosted an audience of more than 400,000. That was in 1969, 50 years later the party continues, or so we thought?

    The three-day festival to mark the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival has been canceled four months before it was due to take place. This is according to the main financial investors, the festival’s organizer Michael Lang denies any cancellations and is insisting that the show must go on.

    “Woodstock 50 vehemently denies the festival’s cancellation and legal remedy will be sought,” Lang told US local newspaper the Poughkeepsie Journal.“We are committed to ensuring that the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock is marked with a festival deserving of its iconic name and place in American history and culture,” Lang said in a statement via Woodstock Ventures.

    The only problem with this is Japanese PR and advertising giant Dentsu Aegis Network whose investment arm Amplifi Live is the lead funder for the festival, said it had a clause in its contract with the organizers that gave it the option to cancel the festival. The chief funder said it could not ensure the “health and safety of the artists, partners, and attendees”. Dentsu insists that all contract obligations had been met.

    Rapper Jay-Z, singer Miley Cyrus, and the Killers band had all been booked to play at Woodstock 50 in New York state. Reports suggested that $30m (£23.2m) had already been spent on booking the artists. Along with a loss of money, Around 100,000 people were expected to attend.

    Other artists such as Dead and Co, Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, Chance the Rapper, Sturgill Simpson, Halsey, and Cage the Elephant were lined up to play at the three-day event due to take place from the 16th to 18th in August. First signs of problems emerged when the festival tickets did not go on sale on April 22nd as planned.

     

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