How The Woodstock Festival Affected American Culture

The Woodstock Festival was a three-day concert held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the town of Bethel (outside of White Lake, New York) in August 15-18, 1969. The Woodstock Music Festival was a monumental music event that brought many Americans together in order to display the fact that we as a civilization could come together in an environment of complete love and serenity. Through this research, I hope to learn how the famous Woodstock concert has impacted both how we live and how we view music.
Historical Context The 60’s had been considered one of the most violent decades in post- World War II history. The fight for African-American civil rights had postponed, following the assassination of its most eloquent leader, Dr. Martin Luther King
These early arrivals casually walked through the gaps in the fences where the gates had not yet been placed. There was no way to get 50,000 people to leave the premises in order to pay for tickets and there was no time to put up the gates to prevent even more people from just walking in. As a result, Woodstock’s founders were forced to make the event free to the public. This announcement of the free concert had two dismal effects. One, the organizers were going to lose enormous amounts of money and two, approximately one million people voyaged to Bethel, New York. The highways turned into parking lots as people deserted their cars in the streets and traveled the rest of the way to the Woodstock Festival by foot. Out of the one million people who traveled to Bethel for this free outdoor concert, about 500,000 people actually made it to the Woodstock Festival. In spite of all the organizers' concerns, the Woodstock Festival began on time. On Friday evening, August 15, Richie Havens officially started the Festival. The music continued shortly after noon on Saturday starting with the band Quill and other psychedelic bands such as Santana, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and The Who, to name just a few. It was clear to everyone that on Sunday, the love fest known as Woodstock was winding down. A majority of the crowd left all throughout the day, which
They didn't have time to celebrate that they had just created the most influential event in music history. They were over $1 million in debt and 70 lawsuits were filed against them. To their great happiness, the film of the Woodstock Festival turned into a world famous movie, which paid a large portion of the debt from the Festival ("The Woodstock Festival of