Monday, March 6, 2017
Stasis of the Woodstock Flyer
The organizers of Woodstock originally planned for the music festival to be a paid event and as such their major argument was the value of attending the event. The flyer acts as propaganda, selling the value of the event as something to be sought after, something that you would want to be at. The flyer advertises the festival as "3 Days of Peace and Music" making it attractive to a target audience of the time, colloquially known as "Hippies", who were largely anti-war. Along with this, they sought freedom through several forms of expression including music. The artists listed on the flyer, including Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead, were outspoken critics of the Vietnam war and they also added greater qualitative value to the festival. The aesthetic of the text works in its favor as well with the colors chosen being that of a tie-dye pattern that was also associated with this era. With the widespread dissemination of these flyers and due to the stasis of it, over 400,000 people showed up in New York to experience Woodstock. Because of this, I would consider their major argument to be very persuasive as it achieved the original goal of enticing people to attend an unprecedented music festival out in the middle of nowhere.
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The placement of iconic artists on the list of the poster definitely added qualitative value to the festival. This really brought in the intended crowd of "Hippies" to Woodstock.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the poster dealt with stasis of value. But I would also argue that it might have to do with stasis of fact/definition and action as well.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if someone wondered, what is this? how is it defined?, the poster would have the answer because the heading says "Music and Art Fair" and that's what the event was supposed to be. It was like a music festival.
It would also be liked to the stasis of action because the poster incentives people to attend the event and that answers the question of "what should we do about?' that is part of the action stasis.
I think it was a good move by the Woodstock marketers to use the line "3 Days of Peace and Music." Because it was a concert, you would think music fans only would attend, but this advertisement probably attracted a much larger crowd as you pointed out.
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