New York Pop Flops
Randalls Island’s New York Pop festival is over, but its meaning lingers on, haunting New York City, and affecting several rock festivals that have happened since. New York Pop was the festival where the radicals took over and were supposed to run the show but it didn’t work out; where Sly and the Family Stone didn’t play and there wasn’t a riot; where Vietcong and North Vietnamese flags flew from the stadium flagpoles, higher than the American flag; where nobody got paid in full; where one of the promoters' men got beat up at a ticket gate; where what a Grand Jury may soon decide was extortion, but really wasn’t, took place; and where there was one sixth the number of people expected yet four times the number of people than there were tickets sold.
In May, or was it June, Brave New World, Inc. and Teddy Productions announced that they would be holding a rock festival on Randalls Island in New York City on July 17-19. This, they said, would be the first festival within the city limits. New York Pop, as it was dubbed, was set in the beautiful surroundings of Downing Stadium, a run-down football stadium with all-cement seating.
Almost immediately, their permit was in trouble when the city got up-tight about people sleeping in the park at night after the show. So the three day festival was changed into three consecutive nights of concerts.