Woodstock 50 Festival Moves to Maryland in Bid to Salvage Event

(Bloomberg) -- The organizers of the Woodstock 50th anniversary festival are relocating the concert to Maryland from upstate New York, a change they say will salvage the troubled event.

The festival is now slated to take place Aug. 16 through Aug. 18 at Merriweather Post Pavilion, an outdoor amphitheater in Columbia, Maryland, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg. The venue should be able to accommodate about 32,000 people.

Organizers of Woodstock 50 have been scrambling to save the festival after their main financier backed out and local officials in upstate New York refused to approve a permit. Attempts to move it to different spots in the state -- home of the original 1969 concert -- failed.

“When we heard that there was an opportunity to save this festival and bring a piece of American history to our community this summer, we jumped at the chance,” Calvin Ball, an executive with Howard County, wrote in a note to Greg Peck, one of the organizers. “Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia is a jewel of Howard County and one of the top music venues in the nation. It felt like such a natural fit to host a historic festival on our storied stage.”

The plan still faces challenges. The original lineup included Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus and Halsey, but some artists might back out given the new venue is more than 250 miles from the original location. The Merriweather Post Pavilion also is a smaller venue than what was originally promised. Organizers are now holding conversations with artists and their representatives about the new plan.

Benefit Concert

Woodstock is now being pitched as a fundraiser for nonprofits devoted to voter turnout and climate change. Some of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to HeadCount, which works on voter registration, and other causes. Organizers are hoping to also raise money via a livestream of the event. They’re pitching the concert as “Woodstock 50 Washington,” a nod to its new location near the nation’s capital.

Organizers aim to charge $129 to $595 for one-day passes to the event, according to current plans. And they’ve circulated a marketing plan that includes emails to more than 800,000 people, billboards across Washington, Maryland and Northern Virginia, and a full-page ad in local newspapers.

The original festival attracted hundreds of thousands of people to a dairy farm in Bethel, New York. A who’s who of rock stars performed, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Who and Jimi Hendrix. A logistical disaster, it became synonymous with the hippie movement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucas Shaw in Los Angeles at lshaw31@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum

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