Woodstock Music Festival

The Woodstock Music Festival began on August 15, 1969, as half a million
people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day music
festival to start. Billed as “An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and
Music,” the epic event would later be known simply as Woodstock and become
synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Woodstock was a
success, but the massive concert didn’t come off without a hitch: Last-minute
venue changes, bad weather and the hordes of attendees caused major headaches.
Still, despite—or because of—a lot of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and rain,
Woodstock was a peaceful celebration and earned its hallowed place in pop
culture history.

The Woodstock Music Festival was the brainchild of four men, all age 27 or
younger, looking for an investment opportunity: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman,
Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang.

Lang had organized the successful Miami Music Festival in 1968 and Kornfeld
was the youngest vice president at Capitol Records. Roberts and Rosenman were
New York entrepreneurs involved in building a Manhattan recording studio. The
four men formed Woodstock Ventures, Inc., and decided to host a music festival.

Creedence Clearwater Revival was the first big-name talent to sign on and gave
Woodstock the credibility it needed to attract other well-known musicians.

Text 2