Woodstock

There are 2 Woodstock 50th events; unofficial one announced on original site

After years of rumors and promises from Woodstock festival co-creator Michael Lang, official details of a Woodstock 50th anniversary — taking place on the original Woodstock site — were finally announced after Christmas, but with one catch. The announced festival is NOT Michael Lang’s or affiliated with Woodstock Ventures LC who run the official Woodstock website. Michael Lang quickly released his own statement which then confirmed that there are actually TWO Woodstock 50th events in the works.

The event taking place at the original site is called Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival, and it’s being put on by Live Nation, brand communications agency INVNT, and Bethel Woods Center for the Arts (the music venue currently located at Woodstock’s original site). As for the fest Lang is planning, he says, “While the original site in Bethel remains close to our hearts, it no longer has the capacity to hold a real Woodstock Festival. I’m delighted that Bethel Woods is doing events in the coming year to celebrate what we brought to life in 1969.” He promises an announcement about the “official Woodstock 50th festival,” which will happen in a different location, is coming “in the next few weeks.”

Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival goes down August 16-18 and it’s billed as a “new three-day festival of music, culture and community,” with TED-style talks and special exhibits. Lineup and ticket information are to be announced, as are “non-musical experiences,” which will include access to the exhibit We Are Golden: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival and Aspirations for an Aquarian Future and The Museum at Bethel Woods, which celebrates the original Woodstock and “the entire decade that it came to represent.” Festival poster below.

Meanwhile, if you’re hoping to visit Bethel Woods to commemorate Woodstock’s 50th anniversary, you might wanna book your lodgings if you haven’t already; rooms in Sullivan County hotels, motels, AirBnBs, and bed and breakfasts are selling out fast, the Times-Herald Record of Middletown reports.

As Associated Press reports, Woodstock’s golden anniversary will also be celebrated with 36 fiberglass dove statues, harkening back to the festival’s original logo, installed in Sullivan County this summer. They’ll be painted in “colors reminiscent of the 1960s” by local artists and installed throughout the county starting in mid-June.

Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival