Light Artists Guild strike -- Grateful Dead show struck
FD 69-0801
San Francisco
The night the light artists went on strike.
On August 1, 1969 the Light Artists Guild — the operators who ran the liquid projections behind every stage in the city — withdrew their labour at the Family Dog on the Great Highway, over pay and over credit. The light shows were not decoration in these rooms; they were a listed act on the posters, and the people who worked them had watched their contribution become an assumed part of the ticket price without becoming a paid part of the bill.
The Grateful Dead were booked and the show was struck. The band's response is the part that gets remembered: Garcia honoured the picket line. It is one of the very few genuine labour disputes in the history of this scene, and it happened at the room Chet Helms was running on the edge of the continent, in the summer everything was starting to end.
Verification Notes
ANTAGONIST-CHECKED. 1969-08-01=Friday; the Grateful Dead were booked to open the Family Dog on the Great Highway weekend but did NOT play: the Light Artists Guild (light-show crews) picketed the hall ('world's first psychedelic strike'); Garcia honored the picket line (played the Bear's Lair at UC Berkeley earlier, arrived after midnight, spoke to strikers). Strike settled; GD played Aug 2-3 (logged on 08-02/08-03). CLASSIFIED event_type=news -- a show recorded by its absence (rockarchaeology101 + lostlivedead, drawing on Berkeley Tribe / SF papers). Poster FD 69-0801 advertised Aug 1-3; designer UNCREDITED (honest gap). Co-lead of 08-01. Family Dog on the Great Highway, 1 August 1969 — the Light Artists Guild strike. Catalog FD 69-0801. This is the struck date; the run resumes on the 2nd.
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