Bethel Woods impact mostly positive for innkeepers

Some concertgoers ‘make a weekend of it’

By FRITZ MAYER

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Where will they all stay? That’s a question many were asking about the thousands of people who come to Sullivan County to take in a concert at Bethel Woods. Many of them see the show, then turn around and go home. But, according to bed & breakfast business owners and others who rent rooms to the public, many of the concertgoers also spend the night in Sullivan County.

Alan Berube, the proprietor of The Carrier House in Liberty, said he was fully booked for Bethel Wood’s opening night and his guests had come specifically for the show. He said bookings for the Goo Goo Dools on a Wednesday night and for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on a Sunday night were especially welcomed, because his rooms are often empty on those nights.

Barbara Brown, owner of the Sunshine Cottage and Pottery B&B in Lake Huntington, said the Bethel Woods concerts “absolutely” had a positive impact. She said that sometimes couples came specifically to go the show and stayed an extra day. She also said that regular customers, who would have come up anyway, came for an extra weekend because of a Bethel Woods event. One couple came from Honesdale, PA for an event and stayed the weekend. “That would never have happened without Bethel Woods,” she said.

The owner of the Ecce B&B in Barryville agreed that Bethel Woods customers were “making a weekend of it.” Alan Rosenblatt said that people call for reservations to coincide with a concert and want to know about what other activities are in the area. He said the concerts were attracting people who had never been to the area before from places such as Connecticut, Westchester, New York City and Philadelphia.

Not everyone agreed that the Bethel Woods effect spilled over to other activities. Christina Klotz, who owns the Old House on a Hill B&B in Ferndale, said her business was positively impacted, but that her bookings were “per event.” She said the concert customers did not tend to stay on to explore other parts of the county after the attending the particular event they came to see.

The opening of the $75 million concert venue had less impact on establishments further away. Dick Lanza, owner of Lanza’s Country Inn in Livingston Manor, said he had “a couple” of bookings for opening night and subsequent shows. However, he would like to see more promotion of B&Bs outside of Monticello and Liberty.

Larger establishments closer to the venue felt a greater impact from the opening. Lou Monteleone, marketing director for the Eldred Preserve Resort, said businesses for dinner was up because people would stop at the preserve for dinner. He said for the CSNY event, the preserve sold a few packages to concertgoers, which included trout fishing, dinner and a night’s stay.

At the Fosterdale Motor Lodge, the bookings changed overnight from Woodstock customers to Bethel Woods customers. Joe Tinari, the owner, said security workers for the Woodstock Reunion festivals had been staying at his establishment for years. This year, when a judge forced the cancellation of the event on Yasgur Road, Tinari was left with five empty rooms. But he had a waiting list for the CSNY concert, so he was able to fill those rooms quickly.

Last hurrah

Tinari said the CSNY event was especially interesting in that some of the customers who went to the show were at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. “They came up in their Lexus cars,” he said, because it was “a last hurrah, a chance to close a chapter on the old Woodstock story.”

That was one type of customer. The other type was the original hippie, still with long hair, dressed in tie-died clothes. They came to Sullivan County in August, as they have for years, to enjoy music in the open air.