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Woodstock was a debacle economically: When hippies count

2020-10-19T22:37:07.814Z


In 1969, four young New Yorkers came up with the idea of ​​booking the best musicians of their time for a festival. Unfortunately, they had no idea about the business.


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Expensive pleasure: Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock

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UNITED ARCHIVES / picture alliance / dpa

Crises are bad, but excessive success can also screw up a business.

This was the experience of four New Yorkers in their mid-twenties during the heyday of the hippie movement.

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The idol of her generation, Bob Dylan, had retired to the country.

To make his job easier, Mike Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman and John Roberts came up with a plan: they would build a recording studio right on Dylan's front door.

They wanted to earn the money for this with a concert that brought together the greats of the time on a stage.



They estimated two festival days with up to 100,000 visitors and tickets for five dollars.

After deducting fees and technology, they calculated a net profit of $ 250,000 to $ 300,000.

Three days of the festival with higher prices and more visitors would bring more.

It sounded doable.

In spring 1969 they founded Woodstock Ventures.

The search for a festival site was more complex than expected.

They had to change location twice after protests from local residents.

It was only a month before the concert in mid-August that they found a dairy farmer who provided them with a valley basin in Bethel, almost a hundred kilometers from Woodstock.

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-10-19

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