On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on Max Yasgur’s farm near Woodstock, New York. The festival became a turning point in the perception of rock music, in the self-definition of a counterculture generation that championed love instead of war, and in the way people gathered for massive music festivals.
Woodstock in numbers:
19: Rolling Stone magazine named Woodstock moment number 19 in a list of moments that changed the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
Article content
400,000+: The number of people who attended Woodstock.
50,000: The number of participants the organizers originally expected.
3: The number of days the festival was supposed to last. However, it extended until the morning of the fourth day, August 18th.
32: The number of acts that performed at the festival.
742: The number of drug overdoses recorded in Woodstock.
10,000: The number of dollars paid to the first act to sign up for the event – Creedence Clearwater Revival.
18: The dollar amount that an advance ticket to the festival cost; at the door, the ticket cost $24. However, because the venue was changed shortly before the festival date, there were difficulties in erecting fences and ticket areas, so Woodstock became free.
6: Number of months Joan Baez was pregnant when she performed at Woodstock. Other artists included Santana, Grateful Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Band, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Estimates suggest that 400,000 to 450,000 people attended Woodstock. Some media reports put the number as high as half a million. AP photo, Postmedia files. The slope of a farmer’s field on the festival site provided a natural concert backdrop. Postmedia files.SunMedia Here, festival-goers take a dip in the “pond” at the Woodstock Music Festival. The festival site, a farm in New York State, was transformed into a medium-sized city by idealistic youths to celebrate rock music and utopian ideals. Photo: Annie Birch; AFP/Getty Images.AFP/Getty Images Jimi Hendrix was one of the most eagerly awaited acts at Woodstock, but weekend delays forced him to close the festival at 9 a.m. on Monday instead of performing on Sunday night. Although many audience members had already left the festival, Hendrix’s performance became an unforgettable highlight of Woodstock, especially when he delivered a heavily reworked version of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Henry Diltz Photo/AFP/Getty Images. In this Aug. 16, 1969, file photo, rock music fans relax during an entertainment break at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, N.Y. Woodstock was many things, but one thing is clear – it is revered by many as a cultural milestone of a generation. AP Photo, Postmedia files.Photo by File /The Associated Press In this Aug. 15, 1969, file photo, rock music fans sit on a tree sculpture while one leaps into the air and onto a haystack during Woodstock. For some, the pivotal festival of “peace and music” more than half a century ago was an inspiring moment of countercultural community and youthful freethinking. For others, it was an outrageous display of wartime hedonism and moral decay. AP Photo, Postmedia files.Photo by Anonymous /The Associated Press This combination of images taken on August 16, 2019, shows the live album (left) Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, with the couple Bobbi and Nick Ercoline pictured on the cover. The image on the right shows the same couple posing 50 years later in 2019 at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, New York. Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, seen in this iconic photo, had been together for only three months when they joined hordes of their peers for the Woodstock festival that would become emblematic of their generation in 1969. Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images.
From the Ottawa Citizen of August 16, 1969:
Ottawa Citizen, August 16, 1969
From the Montreal Gazette, August 18, 1969
Montreal Gazette, August 18, 1969
From the Ottawa Citizen, August 18, 1969
Ottawa Citizen, August 18, 1969
Today, the festival site is part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which includes an outdoor amphitheater, a museum, and a conservatory for arts education. In 2017, the Woodstock Festival Historic Site was listed on the U.S. National Register of National Significance in the category of “Social History and Performing Arts/Music.”
A memorial on the grounds of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, next to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, is pictured in 2009. Photo: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images. The site of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair today. The original stage was on the bare ground to the left. Stan Honda AFP/Getty Images.
