By Juan Pablo Guarin-Camargo, VERNON DOWNS, N.Y. (NCC News): After months of fighting to stay alive, the Woodstock 50 music festival is officially dead.
According to Syracuse.com, the festival was hanging on by a thread by the time its primary organizer, music producer Michael Lang, decided to pull the plug.
“We are saddened that a series of unforeseen setbacks has made it impossible to put on the Festival we imagined with the great line-up we had booked and the social engagement we were anticipating,” Lang said in a press release.
Those “unforeseen setbacks” came in the form of rejected venue applications, Woodstock’s primary investor, Japanese company Dentsu Aegis Network, pulling out in April, and many of the concerts headliners (Miley Cyrus, Santana, Jay-Z, etc.) dropping out.
Woodstock attempted to move the festival to upstate New York, filling applications for Watkins Glen and Vernon Downs Racetrack.
Both applications were rejected, citing security concerns and disorganization in Woodstock’s application processes.
Lang has been adamant in directing blame towards Dentsu’s inability to “understand the business,” Vernon’s “political forces” denying the permits, and so much more.
David Crosby, a performer from the original Woodstock music festival, told ABC News that, while he won’t name names, there is only one person to blame for Woodstock 50’s demise.
“There is a person in that situation who’s a scammer, and he’s always been a scammer, and he scammed this, and it’s dead,” Crosby told ABC News.
