The organizers of Woodstock’s 50th anniversary festival have lost yet another battle to stage their event, after town officials in Vernon, N.Y., rejected an appeal for permits, leaving the embattled concert without a venue just 30 days before its scheduled opening.
In a meeting on Tuesday evening, the Vernon Planning Board refused to give festival organizers permission to use the Vernon Downs racetrack. The board affirmed an earlier decision by the town’s code officer that had found Woodstock’s applications inadequate.
The organizers of the anniversary concert, known as Woodstock 50 — among them Michael Lang, who promoted the original Woodstock festival in 1969 — said in a statement late Tuesday that they were disappointed by the decision.
“We regret that those in Vernon who supported Woodstock have been deprived of the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be part of the rebirth of a cultural peace movement that changed the world in 1969 and is what the world needs now,” the statement reads.
The decision by Vernon, a town about 35 miles east of Syracuse with a population of around 5,000, is the latest humiliation for Woodstock 50, and puts its future in grave doubt. With the event still advertised as running from Aug. 16 to 18 — almost exactly 50 years from the legendary original festival — it has no venue, and no tickets have been sold.
A spokeswoman for the festival declined to comment on its plans, saying only that the organizers were “considering all options.”
Woodstock 50, originally planned for Watkins Glen, N.Y., was announced in January, and had a lineup featuring Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Santana, Chance the Rapper, John Fogerty and Dead and Company, among others. But it has been plagued with problems almost since the beginning, and along the way organizers have battled with a series of partners.
In late April, the festival’s financial backer pulled out, declaring the event dead. Woodstock 50 later won a partial legal victory when a state court ruled that the investor — a branch of the Japanese advertising giant Dentsu — did not have the right to unilaterally cancel the event.
But by that point Woodstock 50 was in dire financial straits, and had lost vital partners like Superfly, a well-known production company. In June, Woodstock was ejected from its site at the Watkins Glen racetrack after failing to make a $150,000 payment.
The status of the festival lineup is also unclear. Most if not all of the acts have already been paid in full; according to a court filing, those fees totaled $32 million. But artist contracts were tied to the Watkins Glen site, and performers may have a right to refuse to appear elsewhere. The original Woodstock 50 pitch had been for a world-class anniversary event with attendance of up to 150,000; the revised plan for Vernon Downs was capped at 65,000.
Since late June, Woodstock 50 has made a series of permit applications in Vernon, but faced repeated denials from town officials, as well as opposition from the local population.
Last week, the sheriff of Oneida County said he could not guarantee public safety at the proposed event. A few days later, Vernon’s Code Enforcement Office denied Woodstock 50’s third permit application. The office’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, cites numerous deficiencies in the 139-page application, including traffic and emergency access plans; at one point, in reference to a map submitted as part of a security plan, the letter states simply, “The legend is illegible.”
Opposition from the public never let up. On Tuesday, Anthony J. Picente Jr., the Oneida County executive, wrote to the Vernon Planning Board urging them to deny Woodstock 50’s application and saying that Lang and his partners had not acted responsibly.
“The only thing Michael Lang has retained from his original Woodstock,” Picente wrote, “is the hallucinogenic effect.”
Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He joined The Times in 1998, and has contributed to Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Press and WFUV. He also wrote “Doolittle,” a book about the Pixies. @sisario
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