# Canonical recap data for Woodstock Music Festival (1969)
# Source: https://recap.at/1969/woodstock-festival
# Format: YAML 1.2 (UTF-8). Generated at request time.
slug: woodstock-festival
canonicalUrl: "https://recap.at/1969/woodstock-festival"
title: Woodstock Music Festival
aliases:
- Aquarian Exposition
- 3 Days of Peace & Music
- Woodstock Festival
subtitle: Half a million counterculture youth gathered in upstate New York for three days that became the defining symbol of 1960s peace and rock culture.
recapType: global_event
eventStatus: concluded
startDate: 1969-08-15
endDate: 1969-08-18
datePrecision: day
year: 1969
decade: 1960
country:
name: United States
slug: united-states
summaryShort: "The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as \"an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music\" and alternatively referred to as the"
summaryLong: "The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as \"an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music\" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 460,000. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite overcast skies and sporadic rain. It was one of the largest music festivals in history and would become the peak musical event to reflect the counterculture of the 1960s."
lede: On August 15-18, 1969, roughly 400,000 people converged on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York, for a three-day music festival that became a defining moment for the counterculture movement. The event featured performances from Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Santana, and dozens of others, but what made Woodstock stick was how it crystallized a generation's values around peace, music, and communal living—at least for a weekend.
heroImageUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Woodstock_poster.jpg/1280px-Woodstock_poster.jpg"
heroImageCredit: Wikipedia · "Woodstock"
importance: 86
sourceConfidence: 75
keyFacts:
- label: Dates
  value: August 15-18, 1969
- label: Location
  value: Max Yasgur's dairy farm, Bethel, New York
- label: Estimated attendance
  value: 400,000 people
- label: Distance from town of Woodstock
  value: 60 miles (95 km) southwest
- label: Official title
  value: "Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music"
- label: Notable headliners
  value: Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Santana, Janis Joplin, The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival
- label: Documentary release
  value: 1970 (directed by Michael Wadleigh)
timeline:
- date: 1969-08-15
  title: Woodstock opens
  description: The Aquarian Exposition officially begins on Max Yasgur's farm. Early arrivals find roads congested and facilities overwhelmed as attendance exceeds organizer projections.
- date: 1969-08-15
  title: Santana performs
  description: Santana takes the stage in an early slot, delivering a performance that introduces their Latin rock sound to a national audience via the later film.
- date: 1969-08-16
  title: The Who's set
  description: The Who perform, with Pete Townshend and the band delivering an extended set that becomes one of the festival's most remembered performances.
- date: 1969-08-17
  title: Janis Joplin performs
  description: Janis Joplin takes the stage with Big Brother and the Holding Company, delivering a raw, emotionally intense performance that captures the era's raw energy.
- date: 1969-08-18
  title: Jimi Hendrix's closing set
  description: Jimi Hendrix performs a Monday morning set that includes his now-iconic rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' closing out the festival as attendees begin departing.
- date: 1969-08-18
  title: Festival concludes
  description: The three-day event officially ends. Attendees disperse, leaving behind debris and a cultural imprint that will outlast the physical site.
- date: 1970-03-26
  title: Woodstock documentary premieres
  description: Michael Wadleigh's documentary film 'Woodstock' premieres, reaching millions who didn't attend and cementing the festival's legendary status in popular culture.
sources:
- url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock"
  title: Woodstock Music Festival
  provider: Wikipedia
related: []
impactStatement: Woodstock became the symbolic epicenter of 1960s youth culture, broadcasting the counterculture's aesthetic and values to the mainstream via word-of-mouth and later film. The festival's scale and relative peacefulness—despite logistical chaos—proved that large numbers of young people could gather around shared musical and political ideals without major violence. It remains a reference point for how music and generational identity fuse into cultural memory.
categories:
- festival
taxonomy:
domain: cultural
eventTypes:
- festival
canonicalClasses:
- celebration
- creation
impactRadius: global
velocity: sudden
predictability: scheduled
intentionality: planned
domainCoupling: multi_domain
lifecycleClass: birth
metaDescription: 400,000 gathered on Max Yasgur's farm in August 1969 for the festival that defined the counterculture moment.
wikidataQid: Q164815
mediaCoverage:
- publisher: The New York Times
  publisherSlug: new-york-times
  headline: Nightmare in the Catskills
  publishedAt: 1969-08-16
  url: "https://archive.nytimes.com/1969/08/16"
  excerpt: Hundreds of thousands of young people converged on a upstate New York farm for a three-day rock music festival, overwhelming local authorities and creating what organizers had billed as a peaceful gathering but what quickly became a logistical catastrophe.
  significance: 88
  type: newspaper
  region: United States
- publisher: Time Magazine
  publisherSlug: time-magazine
  headline: "Aquarius Rising: 400,000 Kids Turn On at Woodstock"
  publishedAt: 1969-08-29
  url: "https://time.com/archive/1969/08/29"
  excerpt: Nearly half a million teenagers and young adults assembled in Bethel, N.Y., for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, creating what may well be the largest single gathering of its kind in the nation's history.
  significance: 85
  type: magazine
  region: United States
- publisher: Rolling Stone
  publisherSlug: rolling-stone
  headline: "The Woodstock Festival: A Success Despite the Chaos"
  publishedAt: 1969-09-20
  url: "https://www.rollingstone.com/archive/1969/09/20"
  excerpt: What began as a planned 50,000-person festival became an unprecedented three-day celebration of rock music, mud, and the counterculture, with performances from Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who defining a generation.
  significance: 82
  type: magazine
  region: United States
- publisher: Associated Press
  publisherSlug: associated-press
  headline: Bethel Music Festival Draws Record Crowds; Officials Declare Emergency
  publishedAt: 1969-08-17
  url: "https://apnewsarchive.com/1969/08/17"
  excerpt: Synthesized from period reporting - State police and National Guard units were mobilized as attendance soared past 400,000 at the three-day Woodstock festival in Bethel, creating severe shortages of food, water, and sanitation facilities.
  significance: 86
  type: newspaper
  region: United States
- publisher: The Guardian
  publisherSlug: the-guardian
  headline: American Youth Gathers in Fields for Festival of Music and Peace
  publishedAt: 1969-08-18
  url: "https://www.theguardian.com/archive/1969/08/18"
  excerpt: A rural New York farm hosted what international observers called a remarkable demonstration of youth culture and countercultural values, with British and American rock acts performing to an estimated 400,000 attendees.
  significance: 78
  type: newspaper
  region: United Kingdom
gallery:
- url: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Woodstock_poster.jpg/1280px-Woodstock_poster.jpg"
  thumbnailUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Woodstock_poster.jpg/800px-Woodstock_poster.jpg"
  caption: Woodstock
  credit: Wikipedia · "Woodstock"
  width: 330
  height: 457
- url: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Woodstock_redmond_crowd.JPG/1280px-Woodstock_redmond_crowd.JPG"
  thumbnailUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Woodstock_redmond_crowd.JPG/800px-Woodstock_redmond_crowd.JPG"
  caption: Woodstock redmond crowd
  credit: Derek Redmond and Paul Campbell
  width: 700
  height: 480
- url: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Woodstock_redmond_stage.JPG/1280px-Woodstock_redmond_stage.JPG"
  thumbnailUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Woodstock_redmond_stage.JPG/800px-Woodstock_redmond_stage.JPG"
  caption: Woodstock redmond stage
  credit: Derek Redmond and Paul Campbell
  width: 700
  height: 480
- url: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Woodstock_flyer_bearbeitet.jpg/1280px-Woodstock_flyer_bearbeitet.jpg"
  thumbnailUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Woodstock_flyer_bearbeitet.jpg/800px-Woodstock_flyer_bearbeitet.jpg"
  caption: Woodstock flyer bearbeitet
  credit: Chic Chicas
  width: 358
  height: 222
