Chapter 11 Frequent accidents

On July 15th, a month before the official performance, the organizing committee suffered its first serious blow: the Wallkill City Planning Committee withdrew the performance permit under pressure from local residents, and Wood Stoke Festival is homeless! It turned out that the organizing committee's massive publicity gave the entire Volkil people the impression that what was about to be held in their backyard was not a music performance with only 50,000 spectators, but a big party that hippies from all over the country would come to attend .To these conservative rednecks, hippies equate to drug use, promiscuity and violence.They are not willing to sacrifice their quiet country life for a few bucks.It is worth pondering that the organizing committee chose this place to follow the trend of hippies returning to the countryside, but it was the farmers who originally lived in the countryside who were the first to oppose the music festival.

It is conceivable that once this incident was disclosed, it immediately caused an uproar, and everyone believed that the Woodstock Music Festival would be aborted.The bands demanded compensation for the loss, the audience who had already bought tickets demanded a refund, and the contractors of various departments demanded the organizing committee to pay cash immediately. Roberts' nerves were on the verge of collapse.He already complained about the constant additional investment, which now seems to be like money thrown into the water, and it will never be recovered.He almost decided to stop reinvesting, but reason told him that if he did so, the initial investment would be completely wiped out.Fortunately, Roberts was still young, so he decided to take another gamble and continue to look for new performance venues.God has eyes, someone recommended to them a farmer named Max Jacobs, who owns a farm in the White Lake District not far from Wallkill.It belongs to the city of Bethel in Sullivan County, New York State, very close to Woodstock.Jacob had just passed his fiftieth birthday at that time. He had raised cows for most of his life and was the largest milk supplier in the area.

When the members of the organizing committee came here, everyone was stunned by the sight in front of them.The main part of this farm turned out to be a bowl-shaped valley with 600 acres (approximately 2.5 square kilometers), which was not only twice the size of the open space provided by Wokil, but also shaped like a natural theater .Even better, the lot also has a beautifully landscaped lake at the back! The only downside is that the traffic here is not as developed as Wokil, and the water and electricity facilities are not very complete.But the organizing committee can't take care of a lot.Jacob was very clever. He added a zero after the 7,500 dollars that the organizing committee originally promised to pay Walker. The organizing committee had no choice but to agree.After the news spread, many local residents also expressed their opposition, and some people jointly drafted an open letter, calling on everyone to stop buying Jacob's milk.Jacob was a very trustworthy person, and he promised not to regret it after receiving the money. For this reason, he withstood the pressure from his surroundings and made the music festival go smoothly.He later told reporters: "You can't deny these people a chance just because they're young men. They should also enjoy the same rights as adults. What I've done is to prove to the world that this is right." Historians later concluded that the residents here were generally poorer than those in Waukill, and that the extra income from the music festival was more attractive to residents here than in Waukill.This is the main reason why the opposition to the music festival among the residents of White Lake is much smaller than that of Wallkill.

However, there are only three weeks left before the scheduled opening time, and there is still a lot of work to be done to turn this place into a theater.The organizing committee immediately recruited hundreds of workers to flatten the land in such a short period of time, set up a revolving stage and several scaffolds for lighting and sound, laid cables, water pipes and telephone lines, installed We built public phone booths, set up kitchens and children's playgrounds, and a temporary hospital, and brought in 500 simple mobile toilets.You know, many of these hippie workers have never touched a shovel before, let alone such a complicated project.God seems to be testing their perseverance.During the most critical three weeks, there was only three days without rain, and the workers had to work continuously for a whole day. Many of them relied on LSD (a chemical hallucinogen, which is not physically addictive, but Can make users have extremely strong hallucinations) and amphetamines are hard-pressed.Among the organizers, Lange is the hardest. He has been eating and living on the construction site and working with the workers.What is especially worth mentioning is that no matter what difficulties you encounter, he always encourages everyone to say: As long as you believe in the power of love, there is no difficulty that cannot be overcome.His optimism greatly boosted the morale of the workers.

When everyone was working hard on Jacob's farm, the organizing committee suffered a second serious blow: a problem occurred in the shooting of the documentary in charge of Kornfield. It turned out that Kornfield, the quintessential "plastic hippie" (who dresses like a hippie but lives a life that has nothing to do with being a real hippie), also became acquainted with hallucinogens such as LSD and mescaline shortly after he met Lange.During that time, he was like a child who just got a new toy and indulged in it all day long.Originally, the organizing committee had always regarded the sale of documentary rights as a cash cow, but Kornfield was in a daze all day long, and did not find a suitable buyer until a few days before the start of the music festival.Later, an independent film producer named Michael Vidley agreed to shoot a film at his own expense and share the profits with the organizing committee after release.Although Vidley is not well-known, he invented a "split-screen" editing method, that is, two scenes are shown on one screen at the same time to create a live atmosphere. The organizing committee believes that this method is very suitable To show a big scene like a music festival, he agreed to give Vidley the right to shoot.But just two days before the performance, Vidley wanted to repent because he couldn't afford the 100,000 yuan needed for the filming. Someone suggested that Roberts pay for the film first, and then try to sell it later.But Roberts, who was completely bankrupt at the time, did not agree, but went to find other investors.Finally, it was not until the second day after the music festival began that Warner finally agreed to provide the 100,000 yuan needed for filming, and bought the copyright of the entire film at a price of one million dollars.At that time, Roberts breathed a sigh of relief, because he finally had a second real income besides tickets.But later facts proved that this was the worst decision Roberts made in his life.The film "Woodstock" and its accompanying soundtrack earned Warner $50 million in its first decade of publication, and the Woodstock committee got only a tiny fraction of that .

Just two days before the start of the music festival, the organizing committee suffered a third serious blow: the New York City Police Department, which had promised to send police to maintain order, suddenly changed its mind, and the organizing committee was faced with the dilemma of having no security guards.Later, after urgent consultations, some policemen agreed to come to help anonymously, and took the opportunity to double their salaries.In this way, on the day of the performance, it was hard to get together 300 plainclothes policemen named "Mickey Mouse" or "Robin Hood".