Music Oral

Introduction
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair: An Aquarian Exposition in White Lake, New York (3 Days
of Peace and Music), better known as simply Woodstock, was a music festival that took
place in Bethel, New York from August 15th to 18th 1969. The festival was and still is today
considered one of the best and most revolutionary music festivals in the history of musical
events. It included many diverse acts, enthusiastic audiences and rushed planning and
planners alike. The production team was mainly comprised of the talents of John P. Roberts,
Joel Rosenman, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, of whom almost improvised the entire
festival within a very short time period and through extreme conditions.
Inception / Vision
The original inception of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair and the meeting of the 4-person
team was incited via the placing of an ad in the New York Times during the late 1960s by
young financiers John P. Roberts and Joel Rosenman, posting “Young men with unlimited
capital looking for interesting legitimate investment opportunities and business
propositions”. Associates of upcoming lawyers and event organisers Michael Lang and Artie
Kornfeld had urged them to contact entrepreneurs Roberts and Rosenman regarding
varying development opportunities, and eventually the two pairs had begun planning. Lang
and Kornfeld as a unit had very little experience in promotion and development albeit their
futures seeming promising upon the success of their contributions to the then-soon-to-be
popular Mediasound studio complex in Manhattan, New York and Lang’s co-organisation of
the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. Lang and Kornfeld approached Roberts and Rosenman with a
proposal of a so-dubbed “studio in the woods”, this studio to be located in Woodstock, New
York and being similar to Mediasound but on a smaller scale. The latter pair were unwilling
to finance the project and in lieu made the suggestion of a concert at the same location, one
that would unknowingly be similar to the proceedings of a previous Glastonbury Festival in
many respects. The aim was to create an environment to cultivate peace, love, culture and
pure art, of which was openly accepted by international audiences.
Operational Description and Evolution
The festival was staged at the Yasgur Dairy Farm in Bethel, New York, at a new location
instead of the event being held in the town of Woodstock. It was scouted out by Michael
Lang himself as to find an adequate location to fit the originally estimated crowd of 50,000
people. Max Yasgur, the farmer and owner of Yasgur Farms and the producers of
Woodstock came to an agreement in mid-1969 that his land may be used for the festival for
10,000 American dollars at the time (now inflated to a much higher rate). No explicit budget
or staffing have been verified and publicly established for the preparations of the
Woodstock festival. It is clear that media and press control, sound design and lighting design
were well planned and executed (despite a few mishaps in projectional methods), though
staffing in regard to ticketing was abysmal to non-existent, along with slack enforcement in
terms of security (and the overall lack of any form of security). Many of the original towns of
staging possibility avoided allowance of the event in their regions; Bethel’s governing
authorities only barely gave official permits to the Woodstock team to continue preparation
for the event after major amounts of negotiation after a stop-work notice was presented at
the site in the few months leading up to the opening day. Within a week from the actual
event, a choice was given to the team by the construction agency as to whether they
wanted proper barriers and ticket boothes to be put in place or if they wanted the stage to
be completed. The stage was chosen for completion, leaving no more time for solid
protection of the event from outsiders without tickets. It is also worth noting that despite
enthusiasm from the youth population of the time, many were against the festival.
Residents of Bethel, New York openly protested the fair, posting signs stating “Buy No Milk.
Stop Max’s Hippy Music Festival” and refusing to welcome Max Yasgur at the grocery store
or at the local diner. Yasgur had openly expressed his at the anti-“anti-war” hostility of his
neighbours, choosing to give out free water upon hearing of water being sold along the
roads leading into the farm and giving away every dairy product he had in stock at Yasgur
Farms. Here is a speech from Max Yasgur at the festival expressing his joy and excitement
towards the community event.
(video of Max Yasgur at Woodstock)
Successes and Challenges

Despite the low and seemingly rational estimate of crowds, 400,000 people would have
presumably been a positive element of Woodstock for their producers. This was especially
in terms of profit, though a challenge that intertwines with this sentiment consisted of the
fact that most festival attendees saw the event as one that was free of charge, despite over
100,000 tickets being sold. This lead to an uncontrollable crowd flooding into the physically
incomplete holdings of the festival. A positive element of the proceedings of Woodstock’s
execution was the immense publicity for artists provided by the festival including but not
exclusively giving publicity for the band Santana (of whom were perceivedly underpaid for
their effort) and Mountain (their show at Woodstock was their 3rd show as a band ever).
Another positive element would be that despite the production team’s perceptions of legal
debacles being to the festival’s detriment, many of these issues turned out to boost the
popularity of the then-upcoming major event. Negative elements of the festical in its
preparation and execution included severe traffic jamming (leading to locals being trapped
in their homes and hopeful concert-goers having to sleep in or atop of their car), safety
hazards such as the rushed staging and unstable light and sound towers (the latter of which
being climbed upon by excited attendees, proving to be a major safety risk), the sale and use
of dangerous drugs such as “brown acid” and heroin (the latter of which leading to at least
two overdoses). Other factors contributing to immense challenges for the creators of the
festival included financial disputes between the serious financiers and relaxed or
progressive lawyers, consistent downpour of rain from Friday through Monday, the
aforementioned incoplete fencing efforts of which lead to those without expensive tickets
attending the event gratis. Though all of these things heavily contributed to the overall
challenge of the festival, by far the most tragic and disheartening event that took place over
the weekend was the death of Raymond Miszak of Newark, New Jersey. On Saturday, the
second morning of the festival, authorities were dispatched to tend to a person at
Woodstock of whom whilst sleeping inside his sleeping bag was accidentally run over by a
tractor meant for clearing the previous day’s waste. He died instantly and was only 17 years
old. Despite these issues, the audience kept the event going and joined each other in 3 days
of peace through immense facets of hardship.
Stakeholders and Contributors

Producers, Max Yasgur, Creedence and Jimi, Quill
Major contributors and stakeholders of the festival were the producers themselves,
financiers John Roberts and Joel Rosenman and lawyers Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang. It
is estimated that the production team spent approximately 3.1 million American dollars
(over 20 million in today’s Australian currency) and furthermore only received slightly over
half of that for their efforts toward the event. Financially, it was a failure at the time due to
the lack of people purchasing tickets and the destruction and crimes committed on the land.
Another stakeholder was Max Yasgur, of whom as aforementioned was given $10,000
American dollars of the time. Though this should be deemed appropriate for the event, the
land was provided under the assumption that a crowd of only 50,000 people would actually
attend. The damage that was caused to the dairy farm by approximately 400,000 people
was so severe it was valued at over 50,000 dollars to repair at the time. Yasgur almost lost
his business as a dairy farmer, previously being known as the largest producer of milk in all
of Sullivan County, New York at the time. Due to the damage caused by the concertgoers,
Yasgur did not permit another festival to take place on his property in 1970 and sold the
property explicitly as farmland in 1971. He moved to Florida that year and died less than
two years later from a heart attack at the age of 53. Creedence Clearwater Revival helped to
boost popularity and profits; they were one of the very first acts to be signed on to the
roster of the festival. Jimi Hendrix insisted on playing last, performing on the day after the
scheduled final day of the festival for only a small fraction of the original crowd. His set and
especially his rendition of the United States’ anthem Star-Spangled Banner gained
worldwide acclaim and conjunctive notoriety for its fierce energy and unrelenting power
(considering the circumstances of the crowd being the smallest throughout the entire event,
severe weather, being almost a day late and the performance being early in the morning).
(video of Star-Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix)

Hendrix was paid the most out of any of the acts, being given 18,000 American dollars for
his efforts. This equates to over 220,000 Australian dollars today. Despite the publicity the
festival brought, very little was paid to little known bands of the time, such as Santana as
detailed before. The rock band Quill played a significantly extensive set of which was well-
received, though they were only paid 375 dollars at the time. Richie Havens, a folk and soul
singer, was paid 5,000 dollars at the time despite playing for nearly 3 hours at the
encouragement of festival organisers. These various stakeholders were later recognised for
their efforts; for many acts and for the production team of Woodstock, their contributions
would bring them major success.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Woodstock Festival was a success in increasing interest in the anti-war
movement, the hippy movement, the acts that performed there and those of whom
portrayed an overall sense of leadership (such as the producers). There would be many spin-
off festivals and planned follow-up festivals such as Woodstock 99 and Woodstock 2019 (the
latter of which was cancelled), yet there would be no level of peace or community spirit that
would top the Woodstock Festival.

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Music Oral

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Introduction

(video of Max Yasgur at Woodstock)

Successes and Challenges

Stakeholders and Contributors

(video of Star-Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix)

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