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WOODSTOCK '99 next generation bids boomers good-bye

© Kevin Reed

Korn? Counting Crows? Fatboy Slim? Foo Fighters?

It's not your parents Woodstock of thirty years ago. Precisely the point that promoters of this third version of the famed music fest are making, with good reason. "They have to integrate the brand name into the population base that didn't grow up with Woodstock," says Jeff Knapple, CEO of Envision, a consulting firm negotiating sponsorship for the event. "We're now 30 years removed from the original concert. It's a whole new generation."

Indeed, the 31-act lineup announced for this third go-around is geared to appeal to the targeted 18 to 34 set, without a single group or performer from the original 1969 namesake scheduled to appear. In fact, only six alumni from Woodstock '94, Aerosmith, Collective Soul, Sheryl Crow, Live, Metallica, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are on the bill for this years show.

Expected to jam Griffiss Park, a former Air Force base in Rome, N.Y., some 50 miles West of Albany, will be some 250,000 fans who have payed $150.00 per ticket to the three-day celebration that takes place July 23-25. So hot was the demand for tickets that Ticketmaster registered a first-day single-event sales record of $7 million in one day.

Besides the acts, visitors will find a tent city complete with two main stages, beer gardens, a film festival, an experimental theater, a technology park, and a fully staffed hospital - along with 240 acres of campgrounds and 2,000 portable toilets.

While incredibly successful, the past two Woodstocks were logistical nightmares. The first developed into a rain-soaked, muddy quagmire while the '94 event became a gate crashers paradise as ticketless fans resorted to fence-jumping in such great numbers that the flimsy, 6 foot chain link erected to thwart outsiders eventually collapsed. This time, organizers will have in place a 12 foot plywood fence backed with steel girders that runs the entire perimeter of the venue, which will be patrolled by over 2,800 security personel. The message is simple. "If you dont have a ticket," warns Daniel W. Flynn, Director of Planning, "Dont come."

Signing performers this time around was also much easier. Skepticism overshadowed the booking of the the '94 show, but when attendence exceeded 350,000 and became an international media event that spawned a platinum-selling CD that helped boost a significant number of careers, such star-powered and diverse talent as Jewel, Los Lobos, Willie Nelson, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra eagerly agreed to appear.