This is a complete compilation of articles published in the New York Times, reporting on the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Festival,

the events that preceded the event, and the aftermath.

Courtesy:

 

 *Please Note: All articles in this archive are in PDF format.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is required.

 

 

        Peaceful Rock Fete Planned Upstate

Jun 27, 1969, Friday

By LOUIS CALTA

Page 24, 334 words

The promoters of a rock music festival planned for mid-August in Wallkill, N. Y., met here yesterday to plan security measures. They hope to prevent disorders such as those that marred similar activities… 

 

 

Woodstock Pop-Rock Fete Hits Snag

Jul 17, 1969, Thursday

Special to The New York Times

Page 56, 362 words

WALLKILL, N.Y., July 16 -- This Orange County town of 8,000 has sounded a discordant note that threatens to drown out a pop - rock music festival scheduled to present such stars as… 

 

 

Woodstock Festival Vows to Carry On

Jul 18, 1969, Friday

By RICHARD F. SHEPARD

Page 16, 488 words

The producers of a mammoth three-day music festival in the Orange County town of Wallkill continued yesterday to make preparations for the fete, but a group of local residents said they would seek… 

 

 

Pop Rock Festival Finds New Home

Jul 23, 1969, Wednesday

By RICHARD F. SHEPARD

Page 30, 749 words

An ambitious pop rock festival is going west 30 miles in the hope of finding a warmer reception than the one received in Orange County's Wallkill, where the climate of opposition led to the search for another… 

 

 

Rock Festival at Bethel Defeats New Challenge

Aug 13, 1969, Wednesday

By McCANDLISH PHILLIPS

Page 38, 260 words

A move to block this week's pop rock festival at Bethel, N. Y. -- the Woodstock Music and Art Fair and Aquarian Exposition -- was dropped yesterday. A motion for an injunction against it was …

 

 

346 Policemen Quit Music Festival

Aug 15, 1969, Friday

By LACEY FOSBURGH

Page 22, 969 words

The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival encountered its latest problem yesterday, one day before its opening, when the 346 off-duty New York policemen hired as "ushers" …

 

 

200,000 Thronging To Rock Festival Jam Roads Upstate; 200,000 Bound for Rock Festival Jam Roads, Upstate

Aug 16, 1969, Saturday

By BARNARD L. COLLIER

Page 1, 1576 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 15 -A crowd estimated at more than 200,000 poured into this Catskill Mountain hamlet today for a three-day rock and folk music festival, creating massive traffic jams and… 

 

 

Throngs Fill Road

Aug 17, 1969, Sunday

Special to The New York Times

Page 80, 74 words

 

 

300,000 at Folk-Rock Fair Camp Out in a Sea of Mud; 300,000 at Music Fair Find Mud Plentiful and Food Scarce

Aug 17, 1969, Sunday

By BARNARD L. COLLIER

Page 1, 1753 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 16 -- Despite massive traffic jams, drenching rainstorms and shortages of food, water and medical facilities, about 300,000 young people swarmed over this rural… 

 

 

Promoter Baffled That Festival Drew Such a Big Crowd

Aug 17, 1969, Sunday

Special to The New York Times

Page 80, 910 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 16 -- The man at the head of it all surveyed the scene at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair land Aquarian Exposition tonight and expressed a certain bafflement… 

 

 

Offstage Shows Are 'Out of Sight' at Music Festival

Aug 17, 1969, Sunday

By MURRAY SCHUMACH

Page 80, 582 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 16 -- Legends of tomorrow were formed here tonight.

 

 

Rock Audience Moves to Dusk-to-Dawn Rhythms 12

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

By MIKE JAHN Special to The New York Times

Page 25, 666 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Monday, Aug. 18 -- The Band, the country-rock group that once was Bob Dylan's backup band, left the stage just before midnight last night as the… 

 

 

Generation Gap Bridged as Monticello Residents Aid Courteous Festival Patrons; CLINIC IS SET UP IN TOWN'S SCHOOL Park Thrown Open for Use as a Sleeping Place

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN Special to The New York Times

Page 25, 758 words

MONTICELLO, N. Y., Aug. 17 -- "Like wow, these people are really beautiful, the cops, the storekeepers, the Army, everybody."

 

 

Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus; Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus From Music Fair

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

By BARNARD L. COLLIER Special to The New York Times

Page 1, 1507 words

BETHEL, N.Y., Monday, Aug. 18 -- Waves of weary youngsters streamed away from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair last night and early today as security officials reported at least two deaths and… 

 

 

Bethel Pilgrims Smoke 'Grass' And Some Take LSD to 'Groove'

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

Special to The New York Times

Page 25, 623 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 17 -- A billowy haze of sweet smoke rose through purple spotlights from the sloping hillside where throngs of young people -- their average age about 20 -- sat or sprawled in… 

 

 

FAIR'S FINANCIER CALLS IT 'SUCCESS'; But He Estimates Losses as High as $2-Million

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

By RICHARD REEVES Special to The New York Times

Page 25, 572 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 17 -The young men who created the Woodstock Music and Art Fair were left today with the memory of a "beautiful thing" and, according to their figures, deeply in debt.

 

 

Nightmare in the Catskills

Aug 18, 1969, Monday

Page 34, 438 words

The dreams of marijuana and rock music that drew 300,000 fans and hippies to the Catskills had little more sanity than the impulses that drive the lemmings to march to their deaths in the sea. They ended in a … 

 

 

19-HOUR CONCERT ENDS BETHEL FAIR; Producer Says Town Has Asked Festival to Return

Aug 19, 1969, Tuesday

By WILLIAM E. FARRELL

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 18 -- Undaunted by rain, mud, wet clothes and chilly mountain breezes, thousands and thousands of youths sat on a rural hillside here for a marathon 19-hour session of folk-rock music… 

 

 

Morning After at Bethel

Aug 19, 1969, Tuesday

Page 42, 354 words

 

 

City Councilman Here Asks Investigation of Bethel Fair

Aug 19, 1969, Tuesday

Page 34, 170 words

City Councilman Joseph Modugno, whose son attended the folk-rock festival in Bethel, N. Y., and became ill, called yesterday for a Federal investigation of what he charged was "deliberate misrepresentation, …

 

 

Bethel Farmers Call Fair a Plot 'to Avoid the Law'

Aug 20, 1969, Wednesday

By ALFONSO A. NARVAEZ

Page 37, 945 words

BETHEL, N. Y., Aug. 19 -- A number of Bethel residents threatened legal action today against the Town Board and the Woodstock Music and Art Fair to recover money they said they lost because… 

 

 

' Beautiful' Festival

Aug 21, 1969, Thursday

RALPH B. LEVERING

Page 40, 246 words

Many of those who attended the Bethel Music Festival -- including the entire family of the writer who has just been made indignant upon reading your Aug. 18 editorial "Nightmare in the Catskills" -- imbibed …   

 

 

Rock Fair to Return to Bethel

Aug 22, 1969, Friday

Page 37, 488 words

The producers of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, faced with a million-dollar deficit and at least one lawsuit, promised yesterday to hold an even bigger festival next summer.

 

 

FARMER AT BETHEL WARY OF ENCORE; Yasgur Denies Festival's Producer Talked to Him

Aug 23, 1969, Saturday

Page 30, 441 words

Max Yasgur, whose 600-acre dairy farm was the site of the music festival that drew hundreds of thousands of young people to Sullivan County last weekend, said yesterday that he had "no thoughts of renting… 

 

 

' A Joyful Confirmation That Good Things Can Happen Here'

Aug 24, 1969, Sunday

By PATRICK LYDON

Section: arts and leisure, Page D16, 974 words

IT ALL happened up at the farm and everything happened. Half a million kids -- hippies, rock people, and even straights -- ran up to the farm for a long weekend of rock 'n' roll music mixed with… 

 

 

Woodstock: Like It Was; Woodstock: Like It Was in Words Of Participants at Musical Fair

Aug 25, 1969, Monday

Page 1, 4216 words

In the minds of millions of adults who weren't there and who still imagine that popular music means Perry Como and Dinah Shore, it started out as a disaster, the kind of thing that makes governors call out… 

 

 

State Investigating Handling of Tickets At Woodstock Fair

Aug 27, 1969, Wednesday

Page 45, 252 words

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair is being investigated by the state because of "hundreds of complaints" from ticket holders who did not get in to see the musical performances.

 

 

Workmen, Who Remain Unpaid, Still Cleaning Rock Festival Site

Aug 28, 1969, Thursday

Special to The New York Times

Page 43, 458 words

BETHEL, N.Y., Aug. 27 -- Nearly two weeks after 300,00 young people converged on a farm here for a three-day rock festival, workers are still toiling to smooth over the scars of mud, garbage and …  

 

 

Lessons of Festival

Sep 1, 1969, Monday

MARGOT H. GERSON

Page 16, 135 words

 

 

Symbolism of Bethel

Sep 3, 1969, Wednesday

Page 46, 160 words

It is curious that in your extensive coverage of the Woodstock Festival no mention is made of the fact that at that fantastic outpouring there was an almost total absence of Negro youth. This is…  

 

 

Mike Lang (groovy kid from Brooklyn) plus John Roberts (unlimited capital) equals Woodstock; Lang plus Roberts equals Woodstock

Sep 7, 1969, Sunday

By RICHARD REEVES

Section: Magazine, Page SM34, 4407 words

HERE comes Mike Lang! He's rolling along the New Jersey Turnpike in a U-Haul truck filled with a few thousand psychedelic posters and some other salable stuff. The kid from Brooklyn is coming… 

 

 

Woodstock Fair's Staff Parting In Dispute Over Future Control; Split of Organizers Reflects Difference of Ideas Among Entrepreneurs on Mining the Youth 'Underground'

Sep 9, 1969, Tuesday

By BARNARD L. COLLIER

Page 43, 1191 words

The four young men who created the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival that lured more than 300,000 rock and folk fans to the alfalfa fields of tiny Bethel, N. Y., last month are splitting up.

 

 

WOODSTOCK PROMOTER

Oct 5, 1969, Sunday

KEITH ROBERTS

Section: magazine, Page SM54, 185 words

Richard Reeves's article about the promoters of the Woodstock Festival unfairly and nastily maligns Joel Rosenman, my brother's partner. I have known Joel for same time, and worked very closely with … 

 

 

Woodstock Festival Costs Bethel Official His Post

Nov 6, 1969, Thursday

Page 38, 108 words

 

 

REFUNDS SCHEDULED FOR MUSIC FESTIVAL

Nov 21, 1969, Friday

Page 55, 148 words

People who were prevented from using their tickets to the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, N. Y., last August will be able to get refunds up to a total of $15,000, State Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz said yesterday.

 

 

Refunds Being Sent To 4,062 Left Out of Woodstock Fair

Mar 2, 1970, Monday

Page 45, 160 words

Some ticket holders who were unable to gain admittance to the Woodstock Music Festival when several hundred thousand persons converged last August on the town of Bethel, N.Y., will be receiving… 

 

 

Woodstock: A Desperate Fear for the Future?

Apr 19, 1970, Sunday

By CRAIG McGREGOR

Section: Arts & Leisure, Page 99, 1001 words

 

 

Advertising: Woodstock Sees a Pot o' Gold

Jun 16, 1970, Tuesday

By PHILIP H. DOUGAERTY

Section: Business & Finance, Page 77, 980 words

It just may be that the young entrepreneurs who created last year's Woodstock Music and Art Fair might find their way out of the financial hole they went into while making history.

 

 

2 at Woodstock Festival Charged With Bad Checks

Aug 25, 1971, Wednesday

Special to The New York Times

Page 33, 158 words

MONTICELLO, N. Y., Aug. 24 -- Two concessionaires who sold nearly $100,000 worth of supplies at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival two years ago have been indicted on eight counts of grand larceny … 

 

 

Where Have All the Woodstock Flowers Gone?

Apr 16, 1972, Sunday

By FOSTER HIRSCH

Section: ARTS AND LEISURE, Page D11, 1024 words

WOODSTOCK, 1969, the Youth Movement was riding high on energy and purpose: a sunny, spirited, sensuous three-hour movie of the Event, more people shown on a screen in that final shot than in… 

 

 

A Toilet Cleaner Loses Suit Over 'Woodstock'

Nov 18, 1974, Monday

Page 73, 128 words

A maintenance man shown cleaning toilets in the film "Woodstock" had his suit for damages for invasion of privacy denied yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

*Additional NY Times articles written about Max Yasgur and Michael Wadleigh’s “Woodstock” can be found on their perspective pages.

 

BACK

    

 

 

 

© The New York Times