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What Didn’t Happen: Sears Point Raceway, the original site planned for the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert

*By Marcelo Sonaglioni

As history has it, the Sears Point Raceway was the original site planned for the Altamont concert, located north of San Francisco. As history has it, they asked for thousands of dollars in escrow against damages, and their parent company, Filmways Corporation, demanded film distribution rights. Ronnie Schneider (then Head of Stones Promotions Ltd., a company which ran the 1969 U.S. tour) refused, and then Filmways upped their fee to $100,000. The Stones ended up being forced to move everything to Altamont Speedway and, in January 1970, sued the intended venue for £4.5 million for fraud and breach of contract, claiming that the Raceway had deliberately misled them and forced the relocation at the last minute, which caused massive logistical issues and contributing to the concert’s eventual chaos and disaster.

Read more about The Rolling Stones and the Sears Point Raceway (from The Press Democrat)
Read: Keith Richards Remembers the Altamont Incident
*Click for MORE STONES ARTICLES

Altamont: The Dark Mirror of the 1960s Dream

Writings regarding December 6, 1969, abound. The incident is held up in sharp contrast to the Woodstock festival, which took place earlier that year and is revered as the pinnacle of peace and love, symbolizing the conclusion of the 1960s and all it was meant to represent. The magazine Rolling Stone referred to Altamont as “the worst day in rock and roll history.” The fact that cameras were rolling that night at the Altamont Speedway—a rare occurrence for the time—and the footage was turned into a movie may be the reason the event left such an enduring impression on American culture, even though the tragedy at the festival and the ensuing court case were extensively covered by the media at the time.

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