It was three days of mud, drugs, traffic jams, and overflowing toilets.
And, yeah, a little peace, love, and legendary music.
The 1969 Woodstock festival remains one of the most iconic events in music history.
Yet, as the decades pass, those who were there start to see it all through rose-colored glasses.
But that doesn't mean that the festival was all dancing, holding hands, and daisy crowns.
These are some of the messed up things that happened at Woodstock.
Bathroom line
These days, a stadium might have one toilet for every 45 or 50 seats.
But at Woodstock, there was one porta-potty for every 833 people.
According to ThoughtCo, the wait could take up to an hour - and the toilets were overflowing
with raw sewage that was mingling with mud and running downhill into the crowd.
Yuck!
Let there be granola
According to the Smithsonian, established food vendors didn't want to work Woodstock,
mostly because of its projected size.
So organizers settled for three dudes called "Food for Love" — who had little vending
experience.
By mid-Saturday, they were running out of food, so they quadrupled their hot dog prices
from 25 cents to $1.
And then, a bunch of peace-loving hippies burned down two of their concession stands
because they were annoyed at the long lines and outrageous prices.
Happily, the day was saved by a group called The Hog Farm Collective, who passed out thousands
of cups of granola and saved everyone from total starvation.
It wasn't supposed to be free
According to ThoughtCo, the festival was originally supposed to take place in Wallkill, New York,
and cost $18 for all three days, or just $7 bucks per day.
But residents of Wallkill passed a law banning the concert, and organizers had to find another
venue with just six weeks left on the clock.
Then, a dairy farmer in Bethel offered up some land.
The stage, parking lots, concession stands, and a children's playground got finished just
in time, but organizers didn't think to prioritize ticketing.
By the time 50,000 people had walked right in and camped out next to the stage, it was
too late to go back.
So Woodstock became a free festival — a mistake that would turn out to be financially
devastating for its organizers.
What a trip
The festival was famous for the mud and the music, but it might have been even more famous
for the drugs.
And people weren't just selling drugs, they were putting them in stuff that they then
handed out for free, to unsuspecting festival-goers.
A nurse told the Times Herald-Record,
"Outside [the tent] they were giving out electric Kool-Aid laced with whatever.
[...] A lot of the kids hurt with this stuff were just thirsty.
They didn't have any choice."
Woodstock organizer Michael Lang recalled being extra careful about everything he consumed
at the festival, because laced food and drink was everywhere.
He said,
"I didn't drink anything that didn't come from a bottle I didn't wash or open myself."
The hippie-pocalypse
The scene on the roads leading to the festival was similar to the opening credits of The
Walking Dead.
Politico even calls Woodstock one of the top 10 worst traffic jams ever — with vehicles
jammed up for 10 miles on the New York Thruway for the entire three days of the festival.
Some people even abandoned their cars and walked in, turning the freeway into a parking
lot.
A few acts even had to be flown in via helicopter, and residents along the roads were trapped
by the abandoned cars blocking their driveways.
The Grateful Dead
Many people said the Grateful Dead was one of the worst acts at the festival.
Even Jerry Garcia's friend Phil Ciganer told the Times Herald Record,
"It was the worst show of theirs I'd ever seen."
But it wasn't exactly prime conditions for a concert.
Dead drummer Mickey Hart told Goldmine,
"It was a very terrible moment for us.
The stage was collapsing.
It was raining.
Jerry [Garcia] and Bob were getting shocked at the microphones."
Peace and violence
Woodstock was mostly peaceful, although there was one notable instance of violence.
According to the Huffington Post, during The Who's performance, political activist Abbie
Hoffman got on stage and took the mic.
The Who's, Pete Townshend, tolerated him for a few seconds before hitting Hoffman on the
head with his guitar.
Put some shoes on, hippie
The on-site festival medical team dutifully handled what was expected to be a crowd of
roughly 50,000 people — and turned into 500,000.
According to the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, by the end of the weekend, staff
reported they had treated 797 bad trips, 23 epileptic seizures, 57 cases of heat exposure,
and 176 asthma attacks.
There were also 938 foot lacerations, 135 foot punctures, and 346 random other foot
injuries — proving that people really ought to wear shoes.
CNN reported that a woman also fell from stage scaffolding and broke her back.
Remarkably, considering the massive crowd, only two people died during the festivities
- one from an overdose, and one in a tractor accident - while half a million lived to tell
the amazing story.
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