HistoryThings.com has an article by
Theodore Hoosevelt about
Woodstock:
The original venue was Woodstock, New York. After local residents quickly shot down that idea, another possible location was identified in Saugerties, New York. After much pushback, promoters found a farm owner named Max Yasgur who accepted ten thousand dollars to let them have a “small” festival on his three hundred acre property.
It was sold as 'Three days of Peace & Music', but Max Yasgur's Festival became iconic, and a slap in the face to an America that preached freedom, but offered little in return. The war in Vietnam persisted, and the persecution of blacks raged on. It was a divisive period in America, and Woodstock's four-day event of music and psychedelic escapism was perhaps just as synonymous with the period. But then again, how did an event, held on only six hundred acres of dairy farmland in the New York countryside, filled only with peace-loving hippies, become so fabled?
Youngsters travelled far and wide to an event that captivated the minds and souls of millions of young Americans. Many even hitchhiked to the festival, which was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime event. But most of all, Woodstock gave thousands of suburban young folk living in the confines of their parent's generation the opportunity to escape and meet all kinds of new and exciting people. It was even rumored that many never returned home, and instead headed straight to the bright lights of New York City once the four-day event had finished.
As expected, nearly all those in attendance were fervent anti-war supporters, and regularly held up signs to promote their thoughts. It was almost a pre-requisite for those in attendance to have such views and share progressive ideas with other festival goers.
Recreational drug use was common; a woman advertised acid for a dollar. There was little policing at the event, which in part allowed attendants to sell what they wanted, although such freedom gave the press all the ammunition they needed to shroud the event in initial controversy with a string of negative reports.
Since the late change in venue occurred,festival organizers didn’t have enough time to prepare the site. Three days before the event, organizers laid out two options:
1) complete the fencing and ticket booths, without which the promoters were almost certain to lose every cent.
2) Put their remaining available resources into building the stage. When the audience began arriving by the tens of thousands, the next day (a week before the actual date of the event), the decision had been made for them: free it would be.
The influx of attendees was massive and the resulting traffic jam lead people to abandon their cars and walk into the event. Announcements on radio stations as far away as WNEW-FM in Manhattan and descriptions of the traffic jams on television news discouraged people from setting off to the festival and even Arlo Guthrie made an announcement that the New York State Thruway was closed, man:
The legacy of the event was about to be set in stone: large crowds, rains, muddy roads and fields. What was supposed to be no more than fifty thousand people turned into over four hundred thousand over the course of the event, and they would soon find themselves struggling against the weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.
Artists' pay:
Jimi Hendrix: $30,000 for two sets plus $2,000 for expenses. There was a cap of $15,000 per artist at Woodstock, so a deal was made for Hendrix to play two sets, an acoustic set and a set with his band.
Blood, Sweat & Tears: $15,000
Joan Baez: $10,000
Creedence Clearwater Revival: $10,000
The Band: $7,500
Janis Joplin: $7,500
Jefferson Airplane: $7,500
Sly and the Family Stone: $7,000
Canned Heat: $6,500
The Who: $6,250 (also reported at $11,200, but Variety claimed that number was inaccurate)
Richie Havens: $6,000
Arlo Guthrie: $5,000
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: $5,000
Ravi Shankar: $4,500
Johnny Winter: $3,750
Ten Years After: $3,250
Country Joe and the Fish: $2,500
Grateful Dead: $2,500
The Incredible String Band: $2,250
Mountain: $2,000
Tim Hardin: $2,000
Joe Cocker: $1,375
Sweetwater: $1,250
John Sebastian: $1,000
Melanie: $750
Santana: $750
Sha Na Na: $700
Rico says he lived in California at the time, but was in
Stockholm for the summer, so he didn't go...
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