Bethel Woods — Woodstock Festival Site

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 15-18 August 1969 took place on Max Yasgur's dairy farm near Bethel, New York — not in Woodstock itself, which had rejected the festival. An estimated 400,000 people gathered in the Catskill hills for what became the defining event of the counterculture generation: four days of music featuring Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, the Who, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Joe Cocker, and dozens of others. Logistical chaos — no adequate food, sanitation, or medical facilities for a crowd many times larger than anticipated — was met with remarkable communal goodwill. Three people died; two babies were reportedly born.

Woodstock was not simply a concert but a cultural crystallisation: proof, to those who were there and to millions who watched the documentary film, that a generation defined by opposition to Vietnam and racial injustice could gather peacefully and create something extraordinary. The event's mythology has only grown since 1969. Hendrix's Monday morning performance of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' — a searing deconstruction of patriotic imagery delivered to the tens of thousands who had stayed through the night — is one of the most celebrated moments in the history of popular music.

The Museum at Bethel Woods opened on the original site in 2008 and provides extensive documentation of the festival. The outdoor amphitheatre that occupies the original performance area hosts concerts during summer months. Visitors can walk the grounds, see the original stage area, and visit the exhibition inside the museum. The site is a National Historic Landmark. Bethel is approximately two hours north of New York City in the western Catskills.