The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock—was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sq mi) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County.

             During the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors before an audience of 500,000 young people. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history. Rolling Stone listed it as one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.

           The festival is also widely considered to be the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation.

           The event was captured in the 1970 documentary movie Woodstock, an accompanying soundtrack album, and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

            Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld. Roberts and Rosenman financed the project. Lang had experience as a promoter and had already organized the largest festival on the East Coast at the time, the Miami Pop Festival, where an estimated 100,000 people attended the two-day event. Roberts and Rosenman placed the following advertisement in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal under the name of Challenge International, Ltd.: "Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions."

              Lang and Kornfeld noticed the ad, and the four got together originally to discuss a retreat-like recording studio in Woodstock. The idea evolved into an outdoor music and arts festival, although even that was initially envisioned on a smaller scale, perhaps featuring some big-name artists who lived in the Woodstock area (such as Bob Dylan and The Band).

 

 

      Program:

      Friday, 15 August

      This day was dedicated to folk music. Oficially, it started at 17:07, with Richie Havens. After festival it continuated with:

• Swami Satchidananda - Gave the opening speech/invocation for the festival.

• Sweetwater

• The Incredible String Band

• Bert Sommer

• Tim Hardin

• Ravi Shankar -Played through the rain

• Melanie

• Arlo Guthrie - 

• Joan Baez -Was six months pregnant at the time.

 

      Saturday, 16 August

     The show started at 12 pm at lasted until the sunrise of the next day.

• Quill

• Keef Hartley Band

• Country Joe McDonald

• John Sebastian

• Santana

• Canned Heat

• Mountain

• Grateful Dead

• Creedence Clearwater Revival

• Janis Joplin și The Kozmic Blues Band

• Sly & the Family Stone

• The Who 

• Jefferson Airplane

 

      Sunday 17 August, Monday 18 August:

• Joe Cocker 

• Country Joe and the Fish - în jurul orei 18:00

• Ten Years After

• The Band

• Blood, Sweat & Tears

• Johnny Winter

• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 

• Paul Butterfield Blues Band

• Sha-Na-Na

• Jimi Hendrix

 

      Woodstock  site today

       

        In 1984 a plaque was placed at the original site commemorating the festival. The field and the stage area remain preserved in their rural setting. A concert hall was erected up on the hill in 2009, and the fields of the Yasgur farm are still visited by people of all generations.

        In 1996, the site of the concert and 1,400 acres (5.7 km2) surrounding was purchased by cable television pioneer Alan Gerryfor the purpose of creating the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. The Center opened on July 1, 2006, with a performance of the New York Philharmonic. On August 13, 2006, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed before 16,000 fans at the new Center—37 years after their historic performance at Woodstock.

        The Museum at Bethel Woods opened on June 2, 2008.The Museum contains film and interactive displays, text panels, and artifacts that explore the unique experience of the Woodstock festival, its significance as the culminating event of a decade of radical cultural transformation, and the legacy of the Sixties and Woodstock today.