WOODSTOCK: A BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

Author(s):    Rick Jervis, Contributing Reporter Date: July 15, 1994 Page: 39 Section: LIVING

Brian Lash's office lately resembles a general's quarters in the heat of battle. Department heads, hired hands, even vice presidents are working triple overtime to prepare for what Lash calls ''the largest nonmilitary overnight movement of people'' ever. Lash, CEO and co-owner of Target Sport Adventures in Allston, recently landed the biggest deal of his career -- the exclusive motor coach contract to Woodstock '94, a contract expected to pull in gross revenues of $10 million.

Come Aug. 13, Target Sport Adventures will be busing Woodstock-goers from 18 sites around the nation to the event in Saugerties, N.Y.

It will be Target's task to mobilize 100,000 people on 1,074 buses from as far south as Richmond, Va., as far west as Cleveland and as far north as Montreal.

"We have gone through 70-to-80-hour work weeks to both close this contract and put the operation together," said Lash, 37, who began organizing his troops for Woodstock back in December, months before the contract was his.

The Target family has since expanded from 120 to an expected 700 to take on the task. Half a dozen office workers were brought in and hundreds of tour guides are being hired to man the buses.

For the past 16 years, Target Sport has been sending enthusiasts all over the globe on ski trips, rafting excursions and even concert events. It was the official tour and travel operator for last year's Orange Bowl football festivities and has organized groups as large as 1,500.

The Woodstock deal, however, has been by far the largest.

These days in the small Allston office, the operation is at fever pitch.

Rick Remes, director of operations, has called every bus company "from here to Miami" to line up buses. Ken Cutliffe, vice president of Target Sport, has secured 18 departure sites around the nation, from a fairground outside Pittsburgh to Foxboro Stadium outside Boston.

"It's been a challenge," said Chris McCabe, a 24-year-old recent graduate of the University of Vermont who was brought in to help Cutliffe find sites. "Some were less sophisticated than others. The one outside of Pittsburgh, for example, had no fax, and there were only certain hours that we could call them, when they were by the phone and not out tending the cows."

Jeff May, director of special promotions, scans hundreds of applications a day, hiring tour guides.

"It's the biggest task I've ever undertaken," he said. "It's a little different from buses. These are people. A million things are involved in making sure these people are fully trained and equipped when the day comes."

Lash, excited and exhausted by the project, oversees the entire operation. "This has been the most physically and emotionally draining experience of my life," he said.

Such a task could have hardly been envisioned in 1978 when Lash started Target Sport, arranging a ski weekend in Vermont for 40 Patriots cheerleaders.

Born on Long Island, N.Y., Lash came to Boston in 1974 to attend Brandeis University, graduating in 1978. Three months later he started Halomar Corp., which in turn birthed Target Sport Adventures and its sister company, Target Marketing and Promotions, which handles the promotion side of the business.

Lash first got wind that Woodstock was searching for someone to mobilize 100,000 people last fall, and in December he sent in proposals to Polygram Records.

Polygram, whose distributing companies have handled movies such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and whose labels include such rock stars as Sting and U2, are the main promoters of Woodstock '94 and are partly in charge of its organization. Tasks are also shared with Woodstock Ventures, an entity created out of the 1969 event.

In January Lash was invited to the upstate New York manor of Michael Lang, Woodstock Ventures partner and one of the original organizers.

"We talked to several others about it as well," Lang says. "But Brian had a real enthusiasm for it."

By April, Lash was flying to New York and pitching his sale to Polygram heavyweights.

"I'm not green," Lash says. "I've been in big offices before. I've met some very powerful and important people. But my previous discussions on a high level were not with a $4 billion record company."

He got the contract, and next month Lash will play his part in remaking history.

"It's just not moving people. It's Woodstock," said John Roberts, another partner of Woodstock Ventures and, like Lang, an organizer of the 1969 concert. "We want people to realize the party starts the moment they get on the bus."

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