Chapter 10 All the money is gone

Running a music festival is easy to say, but it is very troublesome in practice. The first is the issue of venue.The small town of Woodstock itself, which does not have large flat areas, was excluded first.After careful investigation, the organizing committee found that there was a vacant lot to rent in Wallkill, 50 kilometers away from Woodstock.Wallkill is a relatively affluent town with extremely convenient transportation.A real estate agent bought a large piece of vacant land and planned to develop it into an industrial complex.Therefore, the supply of water and electricity is complete here, and the communication facilities are also ready-made.After bargaining, the organizing committee rented the land for US$7,500.Because the real estate agent was afraid, the organizing committee initially assured him that the music festival would not exceed 50,000 people at most.However, with such a large venue that can accommodate at least 100,000 people, the appetite of the organizing committee has also increased.They set their sights on the unheard-of figure of 100,000 and immediately set about signing the band.

At first, those big-name bands were reluctant to come, because no one had heard of such a company.But they were all wrong, Roberts, the backer behind the company, was really rich.The organizing committee decided to spare no expense to invite several big-name bands, hoping to cause a chain effect.They first signed the "Creedence Shimizu Revival" band with an appearance fee of 10,000 US dollars, and under normal circumstances, their entire concert appearance fee is about 5,000 yuan.Shortly thereafter, Grossman agreed to loan out Janis Joplin and "The Band" for a hefty $15,000, and Joan Baez, who hadn't been seen for a long time, was ultimately unable to turn down a $10,000 appearance fee.After that, the California band "Jefferson Airplane ', 'The Grateful Dead', CSN&Y and 'Hillbilly Joe and the Fish', blues band 'Ten Years Later', 'Hot in a Can' and 'Paul Butterfield Blues Band', British rock band 'The Who' and singer Joe Corker, and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, who became famous at the Monterey Music Festival, all agreed to perform.It is worth mentioning that Graham, an authoritative figure in the San Francisco rock circle, threatened to withdraw from "The Grateful Dead", and forced the organizing committee to sign a San Francisco Latin rock band "Santana" who had just debuted. It turned out to be an excellent choice.

In the end, the organizing committee decided to invite a very important band to hold the lineup. "The Beatles" and Dylan were natural candidates, but the "Beatles" were already in a state of half-disbandment at that time. ("Simon and Garfunkel" wasn't there for the same reason), and Dylan, who lived nearby, never responded.In the end, the organizing committee finally put their third choice, Jimi Hendrix, into the performance list at a price of 18,000 US dollars.In order to appease the other bands, the organizing committee had to lie that Hendricks would perform two shows, and finally did not cause protests.

To hold such a large-scale performance, the sound, lighting and stage design must be sloppy.The organizing committee adopted the same method as hiring the band: paying a lot of money to hire the best engineers.Among them, the audio was the most troublesome. After a round of phone calls, no audio company dared to undertake the project, but many people recommended to the organizing committee an audio genius who lived in Massachusetts. His name was Bill Henry. famous.But when the organizing committee called him, his answer turned out to be: This is a piece of cake, give me enough money, and leave the rest alone!As a result, on the day of the sound installation, Henry found twelve experts who were proficient in this field from nowhere, and placed his specially made speakers for this music festival on the scaffold set up in the center of the venue, and the amplifiers are said to be able to Let 440 amps flow through it.Later, after some investigation, someone determined that the audio equipment used in that performance was the most expensive ever, so Henry applied for insurance for his audio equipment for up to three million US dollars.

However, these are nothing compared to security and logistics.The organizing committee hired a fledgling food company simply because they had a hippie-sounding name: Food For Love.In order to ensure the safety of the music festival, the organizing committee specially signed a contract with the New York City Police Department, and they will send police officers to maintain order.To prevent the doomed clashes between the cops and the hippies, the organizing committee offered to pay the cops double their wages on the condition that they pick the right man.For this reason, the organizing committee specially went to the New York City Police Department for interviews one by one, and all those police officers who had prejudice against hippies were eliminated.

Even so, Lange was still worried, and he proposed to ask the hippie organization "Hog Farm" (Hog Farm) to send someone to help.In this well-known gregarious commune, quite a few members used to be cultural people such as university teachers or company managers.They were tired of the intrigue in the secular world and moved to the desert of New Mexico to live a peaceful and comfortable life in groups.There is no private property in the commune, and everyone is equal and distributed according to needs. Years of hard life have made them very experienced in how to adapt to living in the wild.The leader of this organization is Hugh Romney, who lost all his front teeth and behaved comically and exaggeratedly, much like a clown, so he got a nickname: "Rolling Broth" (Wavy Gravy) ).After receiving 8,000 yuan as a reward, "Little Pig Farm" agreed to help.It turned out to be the best money Woodstock had ever spent.

The organizing committee attaches great importance to public relations.They advertised in all kinds of media across the United States to promote this grand event.They gave the music festival a very catchy slogan: "Woodstock: three days of peace and music (Woodstock, three days of peace and music)", and designed a pigeon standing on a guitar for the music festival. Apt sign. Due to the excellent publicity of the organizing committee and the fact that they spent a lot of money to sign almost all famous bands, young people all over the United States were talking about this music festival throughout the summer.The organizing committee's ticket outlets all over the United States were bustling, and more than 70,000 pre-sale tickets had been sold in the weeks before the show.But since the pre-sale tickets have reached an incredible 70,000, there will definitely be more than 100,000 spectators at that time.The organizing committee was getting worried, and many people felt that things were starting to get out of hand.