Well, so much for that.
Just a day after organizers behind the ridiculously troubled Woodstock 50 festival announced they were moving locations (again) from their former proposed locations in upstate New York, to the smaller, 32,000-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, the festival’s organizers have now confirmed they have formally released all artists who were scheduled to perform at the initially-planned event from their contracts.
According to a report from Billboard shared on Friday afternoon, The Killers, Miley Cyrus, Santana, The Lumineers, The Raconteurs, Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Jewels, and many more are now free from their contractual obligations to perform at the event, which is still scheduled for August 16th-18th. The news also comes just a day after both Jay-Z and John Fogerty pulled out of taking part in what has become the best joke of the 2019 concert season thus far.
A letter sent from Woodstock 50 organizer Michael Lang to the agents of participating artists explained their clients were still welcome to play the festival at its new location, but were no longer legally obligated to show up.
Most of the artists have remained pretty quiet about the status of the event over the last few months, which began to show signs of instability when organizers postponed the initial ticket on-sale. Tickets were originally scheduled to be released for purchase on Monday, April 22nd, in honor of Earth Day. Tickets for the event’s new location have yet to be released as of Friday afternoon.
“Michael Lang called me a week ago about doing the show in DC proper but, on this short notice, there really wasn’t anywhere to do that. I suggested Merriweather would be a low-risk option and is considered DC. Plus it has a similar historic legacy,” Merriweather Post Pavilion operator Seth Hurwitz said of the event’s new location. “We made a deal quickly contingent on him putting a show together and dealing with the fact that we have a show booked on one of those dates. So now I’m just a venue waiting to see if the promoter with the hold is going to confirm.”
This story is developing.
[H/T Billboard]
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