Woodstock 50 Is Officially Cancelled

The organizers of Woodstock 50 are no doubt rushing to get their web developer on the line, because it looks like the HTML code of that countdown needs to be immediately changed to zero days, zero hours, and zero minutes. And it’s really appropriate that the graphic chosen for the Woodstock bird looks like it’s bleeding, because Woodstock 50 is dead.

The Associated Press is reporting that Woodstock 50 organizers finally decided to pull the plug on the epic mess of a music festival. Congratulations Woodstock ’99, you’re no longer the worst Woodstock.

Woodstock 50 was meant to be a three-day music festival held on August 16-18 in an attempt to capitalize on the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock music festival. But the original Woodstock actually had musicians that wanted to perform, whereas Woodstock 50 lost Miley Cyrus, Santana, The Raconteurs, The Black Keys, Jay-Z, The Lumineers, Dead & Co, and Loving Spoonful’s John Sebastian. The reason was because of location changes, investors pulling out, and the festival becoming free.

The only performers left were Halsey and Chance The Rapper, but they don’t have to worry about packing up and heading out to Columbia, Maryland in two weeks. Woodstock 50 co-founder Michael Lang released the following statement confirming what pretty much everyone figured was going to happen.

“We are saddened that a series of unforeseen setbacks has made it impossible to put on the festival we imagined with the great lineup we had booked and the social engagement we were anticipating. We released all the talent so any involvement on their part would be voluntary. Due to conflicting radius issues in the DC area many acts were unable to participate and others passed for their own reasons.”

Ringo Starr, Santana, and John Fogerty will perform a smaller Woodstock anniversary event at the original site of the 1969 Woodstock in Bethel, New York. Their event will not be connected to Woodstock 50 in any way.

This probably came as a shock to no one. It’s good they cut their losses while they still had some dignity, because how in the world would they have been able to sell tickets with no big name artists attached? It would basically be an expensive three-day festival in an affluent area of Maryland where people reminisce about putting strange, mind-altering substances in their mouths and watch hippies cover themselves in mud. That already exists, it’s called a GOOP wellness summit.

Pic: Woodstock.com