Woodstock was an open-air music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York, after earlier sites fell through. Planned as a commercial event, it effectively became free when huge crowds arrived before fences and ticket booths were finished. More than 460,000 people came, far beyond expectations, overwhelming roads, food, sanitation, medical care, and security. Despite rain, shortages, three fatalities, and hundreds of drug overdoses, the gathering was widely remembered as peaceful. Jimi Hendrix’s Monday morning performance became an iconic moment, and the festival soon grew into a lasting symbol of 1960s counterculture through film, music, and popular memory.