On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opened on
a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New
York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and
Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise
funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near
the town of Woodstock, New York.

The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob
Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience,
the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts,
including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead,
Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.