Woodstock By Justin Waters What Is Woodstock A
Woodstock By: Justin Waters
What Is Woodstock? A small town in upstate New York, near Albany. It gave its name in the summer of 1969 to a huge rock music festival. A concert for hippies and musicians to rock out, get drugged up and have some free love (Sex).
Why Was it Important? It signified a new generation taking control. Young adults who attended Woodstock had grown up with parents from a generation that was very straight laced, sexually repressed and incredibly conservative. The Woodstock generation was all about free love, peace and equality. Having that many young people of like mind come together evoked a big change in society.
Complications? The first of many things to go wrong with the Woodstock Festival was the location. Stores refused to sell any more tickets and the negotiations with the musicians got shaky.
Complications? It soon appeared that their 50, 000 people estimate was way too low and the new estimate jumped to upwards of 200, 000 people. However, the food concessionaires kept threatening to cancel at the last minute, so they had to worry about whether or not they could airlift in rice as a backup food supply.
Musicians At Woodstock o Richie Havens: o 1) Freedom o 2) Handsome Johnny o Country Joe Mc. Donald: o 1) Seen a Rocket o 2) Flyin’ High All Over The World
Musicians At Woodstock o Jimmy Hendrix: o 1) Lover Man o 2) Mastermind o Johnny Winter: o 1) Mean Town Blues o 2) Mama
Bands At Woodstock o Sly & The Family Stone: o 1) Love City o 2) Dance To The Music o Creedence Clearwater Revival: o 1) Born on the Bayou o 2) Bootleg
Bands At Woodstock o The Who: o 1) Heaven and Hell o 2) It’s a Boy o Paul Butterfield Blues Band: o 1) No amount of Loving o 2) All in a Day
Social Effects o The enormous influx of people merely pushed through the barrier. o It was at this point when the leaders of Woodstock Ventures took a hard look at the situation at hand. o The overwhelming amount of people coming in and the loss of the fencing, meant there was no way of collecting or selling tickets. o The corporation realized it would be nearly impossible to organize the crowd, and force people to buy tickets.
Social Effects (con’t) o At one point there was a thought to simply cancel the event, and to tell everyone to go home. This was far too dangerous, with enormous size of the crowd, no one wanted to start a riot. o Other suggestions were to send collection trays around similar to church, or they could make an announcement over the loud speaker.
Social Effects (Con’t) o These appeared reasonable, but no one wanted to risk upsetting the mood of the crowd. o Finally they decided to accept their financial failure by ending ticket sales and making it a free concert.
Social Effects (con’t) o By allowing everyone in for free it was no longer business opportunity for Woodstock Ventures, but an experiment in counterculture society. o Woodstock Ventures succeeded in their goal of having the concert, but failed miserably at creating a profit.
Social Effects (con’t) o Baby boom. o Inflation of STD’s. o Big contributor of drug use.
Political Effects o At first the zoning board in Wallkill, had led the corporation to believe, it would not have problems getting the necessary permits. o When public outcry increased and the town-building inspector refused to grant permits for the stage, the partners knew they would need legal assistance.
Political Effects (Con’t) o Woodstock Ventures hired Sam Eager, a son of a state Supreme Court justice to lead their fight with the local government. o During meetings with the town board, local citizens raised many questions about the impact of the concert.
Political Effects (con’t) o With Yasgur’s assistance, the corporation obtained the appropriate permits from the Town officials. o Although the validity of the permits were challenged heavily by the local citizens right after construction began.
Political Effects (con’t) Fed up with the lack of action from the local government, the town’s residents took their case to higher level. On August 9 th the Bethel petitioners sent a letter to the Sullivan County Supreme Court.
Political Effects (Con’t) Opposers to the concert and the town board were hoping that the courts would rule in favor of the people, and put an end to the concert. The petitioners complied a list of all the zoning violations, which the town board and the building inspector of Bethel had allowed.
Political Effects (con’t) o Three days before the start of the concert the Supreme Court set up a hearing to be held. o On August 12 th the case went before the county’s Supreme Court, and after several hours of debates the final decision was in favor of Woodstock Ventures. o Woodstock was going to happen in Bethel, regardless of how many zoning laws were broken, and in spite of the over three hundred and twenty two citizens who opposed it.
Economic Effects o Since no profits had been made from concert, even after the concert ended the financial problems continued to grow. o The mess left behind by nearly half a million people, took more than two weeks to clean up.
Economic Effects (Con’t) o The corporation hired a cleaning crew, but could not afford to pay the workers at the end of the job. o Eventually the cleaning crews were sent checks, but at the time they received only enough money to send them home after the cleanup was over.
Fun Facts o Woodstock drew 400, 000 young people to Bethel, New York in the Catskill Mountains. o No incidents of violence occurred at the Woodstock festival. o • Most of the 80 arrests at Woodstock were made on drug charges involving LSD, amphetamines and heroin. o Three accidental deaths were reported at Woodstock
Art At Woodstock!
Art At Woodstock!
Fun Facts (con’t) o Ultimately, Woodstock Ventures, Inc. spent $2. 5 o o million while collecting only $1. 5 million The $1 million debt was to be offset by a film of the festival and recordings of the music. People who abandoned their cars walked an average of 15 miles to the stage 250, 000 people never made it to Woodstock that day 17 miles of bumper to bumper traffic piled up
WOODSTOCK! LONG LIVE ROCK!!!
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