Woodstock 50 rejected again
Town of Vernon denies permit for festival less than month before planned start date
VERNON, N.Y. >> Almost out of time, the organizers of the planned Woodstock 50 festival again have been denied a permit to hold the three-day event at a harness racing track in central New York.
Officials in the Oneida County town of Vernon on Monday said the latest permit application to have the festival at Vernon Downs from Aug. 16-18 — less than a month from now — was rejected because it was filed too late and was rife with problems.
Vernon Downs became the promoters’ preferred site for Woodstock 50 after the original venue, the Watkins Glen International motor speedway, pulled out in mid-June, reportedly over a missed payment to use the site.
The town of Vernon has denied permit applications repeatedly amid concerns about planning for up to 65,000 people coming to a largely rural area on short notice.
The most recent denial before Monday was on July 9, and an appeal of that denial was rejected on July 16. That led to the permit application that was rejected Monday.
A spokeswoman for the Woodstock 50 promoters, led by longtime Ulster County resident Michael Lang, declined to comment Monday.
The festival has been plagued by problems almost since it was announced in January: Tickets never went on sale, the chief financial backer and production company backed out, the promoters waged a court battle with the backer, and then Watkins Glen announced it would not host the show.
The announced lineup for Woodstock 50 boasted more than 80 acts, including Jay-Z, Dead & Company, the Killers, John Fogerty, Miley Cyrus, Santana, Robert Plant, Imagine Dragons, Chance the Rapper and Janelle Monáe.
The festival would mark the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock Music & Art Fair, held in August 1969 on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel and also put on by Lang and partners. That property currently is home to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.
Previous Woodstock anniversary festivals, also led by Lang, were held in 1994 on the Winston Farm in Saugerties and 1999 at a decommissioned Air Force base in Rome, N.Y. The 1999 show, just 20 miles north of Vernon and in the same county, was marred by fires, rioting, looting and reports of sexual assaults.
The supervisor in the town of Saugerties last week dismissed any notion that his town could step in as a last-minute host of the Woodstock 50 show.
“It’s too late to consider hosting that type of event,” Fred Costello said. “... You have to give yourself a year and a half to plan that and to do it safely and responsibly for the people who are going to come . ... It’s not something you’re going to do in a couple of weeks.”
Woodstock ‘94 was announced more than a year in advance and went through a lengthy and detailed approval process at the town, county and state levels. Lang didn’t announce Woodstock 50 until just eight months before the planed festival weekend.