Fifty years after the Woodstock Music & Art Fair that promoted “three days of peace and music,” one of its original organizers announced that he is putting together Woodstock 50 for this summer. The event will take place over three days – from August 16 to 18 – in a 1,000-acre green space in Watkins Glen, New York, near the Finger Lakes. Classic rock had a special moment in 1969, where it influenced culture and the artistic environment. It was the Woodstock Festival. The original organizer of the event, Michael Lang, is promoting a grand celebration in 2019, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair took place in the town of Bethel, on a farm provided by the landowner, Max Yagur. Interestingly, the town of Bethel is next to the neighboring town of Woodstock in New York. It occurred on August 15, 16, and 17, 1969, but the event actually ended with Jimmy Hendrix closing the festival on the morning of the 18th after sunrise.
With an audience of 500,000 people, Woodstock was a milestone at a time when festivals were the great promoters and where the strength of music and culture that this style brought emerged.
Among the artists who took the stage at the festival at the time, we can mention names that marked a generation of young people symbolizing peace, love, and solidarity. The infrastructure was deficient, where only 1/10 of the total audience was expected, in addition to a storm that turned the party into a mud pit.
The festival was a showcase of counterculture in its messages with the emergence of a symbol (peace and love) representing the hippie generation of the time.
The artists who performed at the 1969 festival are marked in the history of 20th-century music, such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, Sly & The 
Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, The Band, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
The audience of 500,000 people made it the largest of all festivals in the 60s, but its importance also stemmed from the social factor (so many people gathered in such precarious conditions and no type of riot occurring demonstrated the willingness for “peace” of that type of audience) and economic: the festival was released as a triple album of great success and also as a documentary film, directed by Michael Wadleigh (and edited by Martin Scorsese early in his career), with 184 minutes and a great box office success. In 1994, the film received an expanded version, with 225 minutes, which is the most common format to find it today.
According to Rolling Stone, Michael Lang, who organized the original event, will promote a multi-generational festival that will have three stages, 40 attractions, and will bring hot names from current rock, some of the classic artists who played at the original festival, and also a bit of Hip-Hop and Pop. Additionally, some of the artists will pay tribute to the 
great names that passed through Woodstock in 1969.
For the tributes, Lang has in mind new artists playing the material of the classics, like Hendrix or Joplin, in a gathering of established artists for that purpose and even the return of old bands.
No names will be announced until at least February, when ticket sales will begin.
Peace and Love Audience
Woodstock 2019 will not take place at the exact location of the original, but now in Watkins Glen, on August 16, 17, and 18. Lang assures that the infrastructure will be much better and will provide the same comfort (or even more) than that of contemporary festivals.
Lang will need to overcome the fiasco of a previous celebration: Woodstock 1999, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of the original event, but was considered a weak, poorly organized event and ended in 
chaos, with fights and a fire. However, the organizer claims that, at that time, it was “an MTV event” and he himself was not so present in the organization, culminating in chaos, worsened by extremely hot weather and water bottles sold at exorbitant prices, which led to hundreds of cases of dehydration.
The organizer, who did not profit from the original Woodstock, which was a cultural and social success, but an economic fiasco (most of the audience did not pay for tickets and demolished the fence that marked the event, but the promoters had to bear the infrastructure to accommodate them throughout the “3 days of peace and music”) – guarantees that he wants the 2019 edition in a totally different climate. He states:
– “Woodstock ’99 was just a musical experience without social meaning. It was just a big party. With this (in 2019), we will return to our roots and our original intention. And this time, we will have control over everything.”
With rock currently in decline worldwide and celebratory events, such as the Dessert Trip Festival (in 2016), being necessary to maintain some relevance, could Woodstock 2019 bring back a bit of the old flame or even become a landmark of rock in the 21st century?!
Although the artist lineup will not be announced until February, when tickets will start being sold to the general public, The New York Times reported that organizer Lang is planning to book “a mix of legacy bands, current pop acts, and rap stars and possibly some news combinations.”
To encourage younger participants, the festival will offer a limited number of discounted passes for college students aged 18 to 25.
According to an interview with Lang published in Rolling Stone magazine, the 2019 team has already booked over 40 stars to attend the event. Lang suggested to the magazine that there would be tributes honoring some of the original artists from the Woodstock festival, including Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Band, and Joe Cocker.
There will be 3 main stages at Woodstock 50, each of which will offer its own programming of music, comedy, spoken word, 
film, and food.
The organizers hope to call back the spirit that animated the iconic event of 1969 – during another tumultuous time in American history. The mission of Woodstock 50, they say, is “to unite people in a shared experience with great artists and encourage active support for equality, inclusion, and a shared sustainable future.”
According to the interview, Lang and his colleagues plan to sell about 100,000 three-day passes for the festival and hope that most participants will camp on the festival grounds.
The 50th anniversary edition will offer “glamping” tents and other amenities. Such services may also help the 2019 festival distance itself from the terrible problems that plagued the 1999 edition.
The International Peace Symbol
The international peace symbol, a symbol of the hippie movement, began to be used by them in the 60s. At that time, it had been created for the “Disarmament Campaign,” more precisely in 1958.
Therefore, contrary to what many people think, the peace symbol was not developed by hippies and is not originally the symbol of peace and love. “Peace and love” is the motto of the hippies, who also associated it with ecological themes.
The design of the symbol means nuclear disarmament. At the same time, the New Age movement also appropriated the symbol with the 
purpose of representing its philosophy. The New Age seeks balance, which is achieved through inner peace. But there are many other uses for this symbol that we are unaware of, such as its use as a satanic symbol, known as the Chicken Foot Cross or Nero’s Cross. As it is seen as an upside-down cross (the arms of Jesus fallen), it represents peace without Jesus Christ.
Over the years, the peace symbol has been appropriated by various groups, including as a symbol of anarchy by punks, so it has lost its original purpose. But nowadays the anarchist symbol still exists, but completely different. The most popular symbol of anarchy is the letter A inside a circle. This circle would actually be the letter O. The letter “A” is the first letter of the word Anarchy, which in many languages, especially in European languages of Latin origin, begins with the same vowel. The letter “O” symbolizes order. The letter “A” inside the letter “O” refers to one of the most famous quotes by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, one of the great theorists of anarchism, which says that “Anarchy is Order.”
Peace and Love Symbol with Fingers
The peace and love symbol was used by the troops representing victory in World War II. Just like the peace symbol, it came to be used by hippies as a representation of their motto.