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Michael Lang and Artie Kornfield pair up with John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, as Lang and Kornfield wanted to open their own recording studio in Woodstock. They planned to raise the money to do this by holding a 2 day music festival, which would later become the famous Woodstock music festival.
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The young men find a 300 acre industrial park in Wallhill, New York. They lease it from a man named Howard Mills for $10,000.
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The townspeople of Wallkill don't want a bunch of hippies congregrating in their town, and protest the event being held there. They didn't want them there doing a bunch of drugs and causing trouble, and the young men planning it try to convince them otherwise.
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Unable to be persuaded, the town of Wallkill rids itself of hosting the planned Woodstock event. This shook up the planning and supporters of the festival by a lot, due to the fact that they had to find a location with only a month and a half until the event was supposed to be held.
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The music starts again, at noon, and featured some big psychedelic artists at the time, including Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and The Who. The music continues until 9 am the next day!
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Elliot Tiber had an offer of land for the event to be held on. Lang wasn't convinced that it would be the best land, but he had a friend named Max Yasgur with a 600 acre dairy farm who was willing to host the festival there. Lang and Yasgur make a deal to host it there for $75,000, and a location for Woodstock is found.
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The town allows them to host a 3 day music festival, and they sey that they are expecting around 50,000 people to attend the event.
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Since the location had to be changed last minute, the building of concession stands, outhouses, and other necessities had to be rushed. Also, the predicted number of people attending had skyrocketed from 50,000 to almost 200,000. This left a lot of the event unprepared, and they rushed to get in more water, lavatories, and supplies. They didn't have time to build ticketbooths or gates. Many people had already arrived, and since they didn't have time to put up any gates, they had to make it free.
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The event was scheduled to start at 4 p.m., but there was so much traffic that artists and people hadn't all yet arrived, although hundreds of thousands were already in attendance. At 5 p.m., the artist Ritchie Havens kicked off the festival with a set that included some Beatle's covers. Several other artists followed after him until the conclusion of that friday night.
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The final day carried on from Sunday to Monday, and was famously closed with an improvised cover of the Star Spangled Banner performed by Jimi Hendrix. That ended the music festival that was an iconic event in American history.
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A documentary that filmed the events of Woodstock was directed by Michael Wadleigh. It was released on this day.