55 Years Ago: Woodstock by the Numbers

Some of the numbers associated with Woodstock are well known. The now-legendary festival featured 32 acts performing over three days before half a million fans. But did you know there were hundreds of portable toilets, too?

Kicking off on Aug. 15, 1969, in Bethel, New York, Woodstock gave the world a series of career-making performances – perhaps most notably from a fledgling group of Latin rockers called Santana. There were just as many challenges, from scheduling mixups to overindulgence and arrests to rain delays and some seriously muddy festival grounds. A tractor crushed someone.

And all of that was after Woodstock was banned from its first proposed location in Wallkill, New York, then rejected again by the town of Saugerties. As a result, festival organizers barely had time to set up everything after a late permitting process in Bethel, leaving yawning gaps in the fencing. Organizers were then forced to convert Woodstock into a free event as fans descended from all over America.

Ironically enough, however, the original Woodstock was far and away the most successful of them all. Woodstock ’94 turned into a muddy moshpit while Woodstock 1999 went down in flames. Woodstock 2019, which would have marked the 50th anniversary, simply fell apart.

Meanwhile, a film of the original event earned more than $50 million during its run in theaters, becoming the sixth highest-grossing movie of 1970. The album version, dubbed Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, topped the Billboard chart on its way to double platinum certification.

Here’s a look back at the original Woodstock – by the numbers.