TY  - GEN
AB  - Over the Labor Day weekend in 1972, 2 promoters planned to hold a rock music festival on the grounds of a racetrack in Chandler, Indiana, billed as the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival. Indiana officials prohibited the use of the initial site, forcing promoters to a last minute move to Bull Island, a piece of land jutting out into the Wabash River. Only accessible from Indiana, Bull Island was east of the river, but through a technicality based on the original course of the river, it was officially in Illinois' jurisdiction. (Bull Island is how this festival is most commonly known.) Expected crowds of 55,000 swelled to 200,000 to 300,000. Law enforcement (only 3 deputy sheriffs were on scene), access (cars were parked for 4 miles along the interstate as drivers and passengers then hiked in), sanitation, food, and water were completely inadequate. Many of the promised performers did not show. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll was the order of the day. A torrential rainstorm furthered the chaos; the event ended withn 2 deaths, overturned and robbed food trucks, the stage being burned, mounds of debris, and massive legal problems for the 2 promoters.
AU  - Sonny Brown
DA  - 1972
DA  - September 2-4, 1972
ID  - 1543301
KW  - Local History
KW  - Photographs
KW  - Regional History
KW  - Related Materials -- 1951-2000
L1  - https://library.usi.edu/record/1543301/files/7.jpg
L2  - https://library.usi.edu/record/1543301/files/7.jpg
L4  - https://library.usi.edu/record/1543301/files/7.jpg
LA  - eng
LK  - https://library.usi.edu/record/1543301/files/7.jpg
N2  - Over the Labor Day weekend in 1972, 2 promoters planned to hold a rock music festival on the grounds of a racetrack in Chandler, Indiana, billed as the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival. Indiana officials prohibited the use of the initial site, forcing promoters to a last minute move to Bull Island, a piece of land jutting out into the Wabash River. Only accessible from Indiana, Bull Island was east of the river, but through a technicality based on the original course of the river, it was officially in Illinois' jurisdiction. (Bull Island is how this festival is most commonly known.) Expected crowds of 55,000 swelled to 200,000 to 300,000. Law enforcement (only 3 deputy sheriffs were on scene), access (cars were parked for 4 miles along the interstate as drivers and passengers then hiked in), sanitation, food, and water were completely inadequate. Many of the promised performers did not show. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll was the order of the day. A torrential rainstorm furthered the chaos; the event ended withn 2 deaths, overturned and robbed food trucks, the stage being burned, mounds of debris, and massive legal problems for the 2 promoters.
PB  - University of Southern Indiana
PY  - 1972
PY  - September 2-4, 1972
T1  - Crowd at Bull Island music festival in Bull Island, Illinois
TI  - Crowd at Bull Island music festival in Bull Island, Illinois
UR  - https://library.usi.edu/record/1543301/files/7.jpg
Y1  - 1972
ER  -