With less than a month to go before it’s scheduled to begin, Woodstock 50 found itself a new venue at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland, but it still needs a lineup. Jay-Z and John Fogerty dropped off the festival when it moved to MD, and Billboard reports that, in fact, every band on the original lineup has been released from their contract to perform. Those contracts would likely have been impossible to enforce; once original investor Dentsu Aegis Network backed out of the festival, several agents said that their contracts were with Dentsu, and effectively breached. The over 250-mile move from the original venue, Watkins Glen, would also be considered a breach of the contract conditions.
Released from their contracts or not, the artists on the Woodstock 50 lineup have Wbeen paid, as original festival co-founder Michael Lang and partner Greg Peck confirmed back in May, and they are under no obligation to return that money. Woodstock 50 found a new investorafter Dentsu, but organizers were unable to recover the money they claimed Dentsu “illegally swept” from festival bank accounts. After spending millions on the original lineup, it’s unclear how they would finance a new one, and on such late notice.