The 50 year anniversary of Woodstock, nominated by NME as the greatest musical event ever, is a fitting time to look at what Woodstock meant to music and people through the decades.
The first event was named Aquarian Exposition: Three Days of Peace and music and didn’t end up taking place in Woodstock due to legal difficulties. It was originally planned to host 50,000 people. This was a drastic underestimation and after a few flawed organizational decisions the crowd ended up being upwards of 400,000 with many being turned away.
The documentary that followed won the Best Documentary Oscar the following year and so Woodstock shaped the future of music festivals and the so-called ‘Woodstock generation’ of hippy counterculture.