Festival to go on but in new form

The Field Day Music Festival hasn’t packed it in completely, but the ambitious East Coast event will be far different from promoters’ initial plans.

Scrambling to keep the Long Island show alive after a series of challenges by state and local government agencies, organizers have abruptly cut the two-day event in half and moved it from leafy campgrounds in Calverton, N.Y., to the concrete canyon of Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Saturday.

Instead of honoring tickets already sold, the promoters will post refunds and start from scratch with ticket sales. The slate of performers has been reduced significantly too, although the headliners remain Radiohead, the Beastie Boys, Beck and Blur. The show was supposed to import the European-style festival model that also inspired the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which has become a successful franchise in Southern California.

Promoters have said that local memories of the fires and chaos at the 1999 Woodstock revival likely inspired much of the government resistance that derailed Field Day in the last two weeks.

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Geoff Boucher