Woodstock 1969 – 40 years

August 15, 1969 - Woodstock begins on Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. Tickets are $18 for three days of counterculture musical acts, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who,Joan Baez,Creedence Clearwater Revival,Janis Joplin,Santana,etc.

Thirty-two acts performed during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone’s 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.

The event was captured in a successful 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 Statistics List

0………….Collection bin anywhere within eyeshot of the festival site
1………….Case of Pneumonia
1………….Diabetic Coma
1………….Price (in dollars) for a loaf of bread and a quart of milk
2………….Festival births
2………….Number of tickets gates at site (30 entrances each)
3………….Deaths (one each from heroin overdose, ruptured appendix
and being run over by a tractor)
3………….Tracheotomies performed
4………….Cost (in dollars) of hit of acid or mescaline
4………….Number of miscarriages reported
10…………Number of shots fired in air by farmer fed up with noise
10…………Millions of yards of blue jean and striped t-shirt material
at the festival
13…………Number of months between Jimi Hendrix’s performance
and his death
14…………Number of months between Janis Joplin’s performance
and her death
15…………Price (in dollars) of an ounce of marijuana
18…………Price (in dollars) of advance sale ticket for three days
18…………Number of doctors who treated 6,000 patients
31…………Number of musical acts to appear on the main stage
33…………Number of people arrested on drug charges
36…………Number of nurses who treated 6,000 patients
48…………Number of pages in original Woodstock Program distributed
at the site
50…………Number of additional doctors flown in from New York City
on August 16
50…………Cost (in cents) of hot dog at inflated prices at diners
near the site
60…………Approximate number of public telephones is area
61…………Number of Short Line buses sent from New York City
65…………Amateur radios employed
80…………Width (in feet) of the stage
80…………Lawsuits filed after the festival
90…………Percentage of festival attendees smoking marijuana
100………..Approximate number of arrests on narcotic charges
120………..Longest waiting time (in minutes) between acts
150………..Number of volunteer cops
346………..Number of off-duty New York City policemen hired at $50
per day each, joined by 100 local sheriffs, several
hundred State Troopers and deputies from 12 counties
400………..Festival-goers who freaked out on bad LSD trips
450………..Cows unfenced for three days with the campers
600………..Number of Port-O-Sans (portable toilets)
1,300……….Pounds of canned food, sandwiches and fruit flown in
by emergency helicopters
1,500……….Paid (in dollars) for Santana’s 45 minute performance.
2,500……….1989 price (in dollars) of original Woodstock posters
4,062……….Ticket holders who received a refund check because they
were unable to gain attendance
7,500……….Paid (in dollars) for The Grateful Dead to perform
8,000……….1989 price (in dollars) for an uncollected festival ticket
sold by attendee
11,200………Paid (in dollars) for The Who to perform
30,000………Number of sandwiches prepared by the Women’s Group of
the Jewish Community Center of Monticello and distributed
by the Sisters of the Convent of St. Thomas
60,000………Number of people expected to attend festival
100,000……..Number of campers
186,000……..Tickets sold
250,000……..Number of people who never made it to the site
315,000……..Feet of film shot for Woodstock film (120 hrs)
320,000……..Estimated number of people who left before Hendrix played
400,000……..Estimated number of people who attended festival
500,000……..Long distance phone calls placed the first day of festival
500,000……..Frankfurters and hamburgers consumed on the first day
500,000……..Estimated cost of festival (in dollars), revised to $2.6
million ten months after
600,000……..Dollars worth of bad checks reportedly signed by John
Roberts during festival which were later covered
1,000,000…….Reported price (in dollars) paid by Alan Gerry in 1996
for the 37.5 acre natural amphitheatre portion of
the Woodstock site
1,300,000…….Dollars collected in advance sales
50,000,000+….Worldwide box office gross (in dollars) made by 1979 on
Woodstock movie