The Woodstock festival opened
On this day · 15 August 1969
On a muddy dairy farm in upstate New York, half a million people turned three days of music into a generation's defining gathering.
On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm near Bethel, New York, billed as “3 Days of Peace & Music.” Organizers had braced for a large crowd; instead, an estimated 400,000 to 450,000 people streamed in, swamping the roads and the fences alike.
With the gates overwhelmed, the promoters did the only sensible thing and declared the festival free. Folk singer Richie Havens took the stage first, stretching his set for hours because the acts behind him were stuck in the traffic he was singing over.
What was meant to be a ticketed concert became, almost by accident, a free city of half a million.
Over the next three days the bill ran through thirty-two acts, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, whose Monday-morning set closed a festival already running on rain, mud, and goodwill. Woodstock lost money for its backers, yet it endured as the era’s most recognizable symbol of 1960s counterculture.
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