Organizer Michael Lang says anniversary festival will be a "once in a lifetime event."
A number of artists performing at Woodstock 50 in Watkins Glen, New York have been paid in full after a brief delay and rumors that the anniversary event was in financial trouble.
Sources tell Billboard that payment had gone out a few days later than orginally planned as financial backer Dentsu, a Japanese advertisting congolmerate, worked through attendance issues at the site in upstate New York. Woodstock 50 is expected to draw 100,000 fans for the event produced by Michael Lang, co-founder of the orginal 1969 Woodstock festival and co-owner of Woodstock Ventures, which manages the iconic festival's intellectual property.
Because the event is not being put on by a major promoter like Live Nation or AEG, most major agencies consider it to be riskier than events like Coachella and Bonnaroo, and required Lang and Densu to pay 100 percent of the artist payments upfront before the lineup was announced. While reps for some of the major headliners tell Billboard they were paid in full weeks ago, other artists had not been paid by last Friday, raising red flags with major agencies who expected the lineup to be announced in February and are now seeing it pushed into March.
