Another Woodstock 50 Producer Pulls Out After Venue Cancellation
Not long after Woodstock 50 lost its venue site in Watkins Glen, New York, on Monday (June 10), festival producer CID Entertainment also ended its involvement in the event, Billboard has reported. Woodstock 50 was originally scheduled to take place August 16-18 at Watkins Glen International racetrack.
CID Entertainment is the second festival producer to cut ties with the concert planned in honor of 1969's first Woodstock. Marketing and event company Superfly had initially agreed to produce Woodstock 50 for $3 million, but that outfit backed out around the time financier Dentsu left the project with $17.8 million of the festival's funds.
Dentsu had tried to cancel the festival outright in April, but were legally barred from doing so. In the ruling, a judge indicated "organizers were unlikely to pull off the event" after seeing correspondence between Superfly and Woodstock 50 organizer Michael Lang, who co-produced the original Woodstock. Through all this, Woodstock 50 vowed to continue. On Monday, the festival released a statement reaffirming its resolve.
But that means a new venue must be found to host Woodstock 50, which was first revealed in March with the Killers, the Black Keys and Greta Van Fleet on the bill. Tickets were announced but never went on sale.
"CID Entertainment had been engaged to provide enhanced camping, travel packages and transportation for Woodstock 50," CID Entertainment head Dan Berkowitz said. "Given developments, we can confirm that CID is no longer involved in Woodstock 50 in any capacity."
Woodstock 50 LLC principal Gregory Peck responded Monday that the festival in currently in negotiations with a new venue to host the event. Tickets for the embattled festival, he said, would be on sale within a span of weeks.
We confirm that we will not be moving forward with Watkins Glen as a venue for Woodstock 50. We are in discussions with another venue to host Woodstock 50 on August 16th—18th and look forward to sharing the new location when tickets go on sale in the coming weeks.
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