Sometimes in life, something extraordinary happens out of something that wasn't meant to be much. This was certainly the case with the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which took place at a dairy farm in the Catskills over four days in the summer of 1969. It was meant to include selling framed art as well as featuring musical acts. This is now the music festival that all others are measured against and included thirty-two acts and was attended by about half a million people. The event grew so quickly and unexpectedly that a state of emergency was actually called on the third day.

Creedence Clearwater Revival was the first big name to sign up for this event and played for $10,000. This started a stream of acts signing up, including Santana, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who. You will still hear the sounds of some of these bands coming out the window of Pickering real estate to in cars in the United Kingdom. Some acts did, however, decline the invitation to join in the festivities. The Doors, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles were all asked to join in the event.

Woodstock was not meant to be a free concert and tickets were printed up for the three days and were meant to be sold at the door. But things starting going wrong with the planning of this event as the start date approach. First, the organizers lost their venue and scrambled to find another until a dairy farmer named Max Yasgur offered his land. A site that was more meant to be like a veterinarian clinic. London Ontario to Florida people started hearing about the festival and came from all over to join. This made security almost impossible but surprisingly this was a relatively peaceful throughout the four days.

What was meant to be a celebration of music in a place where musicians could all exchange ideas became the most popular arts event that the world has ever seen. You will still find dentists in Oshawa to lawyers in Los Angeles that will tell you stories about how they attended this historic concert. But the festival was not a financial success. It lost over a million dollars and there were several lawsuits filed against the organizers. A documentary of the festival was made the following year and the profits from that actually paid off much of the debt.

There have been many festivals and concerts in the past forty years that have attempted to recreate the phenomenon that was Woodstock but none have ever reached this level of attendance or significance. While some might off a car sweepstakes or the best bands in the world, it seems that this was still a once in a lifetime weekend for those that were there.