The San Francisco-based promoters that are putting on WestFest, a free 40th Anniversary Woodstock concert on October 25th, will announce today that they do not plan to comply with a cease and desist order from New York's Woodstock Ventures, the production company that put on the original Woodstock in 1969.
According to a press release from Boots Houghston, producer of WestFest, Woodstock Ventures has been shutting down "any event in the world that plans to celebrate the "40th Anniversary of Woodstock," as well as anyone who tries to use the phrase "Peace and Love." Houghston claims that since at least 18 of the original artists that were at the original 1969 festival were from San Francisco, that they have as much a right to use the name as anyone.
Among the SF performers are DFH veteran and Country Joe McDonald, a performer at the original Woodstock, and an ensemble of 3,000 guitar players playing Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' at the same time.
Understandably and predictably, folks involved with the San Francisco production think that going to the mat on trademark issues over the word "Woodstock" is not exactly in the spirit of Woodstock itself, and that Woodstock has plenty of a debt to settle with San Francisco. "We're the ones who started the whole vibe to begin with," Hughston said.
