Woodstock concerts
The Event Re-creations of the original 1969
Woodstock Festival
Date August 12-14, 1994; July 23-25, 1999
Place Saugerties, New York; Rome, New York
The twenty-fifth and thirtieth anniversar y celebrations
were planned as reincarnations of the landmark Woodstock
concert of 1969, but the corporate-sponsored 1994 sequel,
dubbed “Mudstock,” and the 1999 festival, which was tar-
nished by violence, were significantly different from the orig-
inal.
Woodstock ’94 was held on the weekend of August
12-14 on the 840-acre Winston Farm in Saugerties,
New York. This twenty-fifth anniversary celebration
was intended to re-create the idealism and social
harmony of the original 1969 “Woodstock Nation”
in Bethel, New York. Both events took place on farms
and suffered from bad weather. After torrential rains
started pouring on August 13, 1994, people slam-
danced in muddy mosh pits, and the “mud people”
became the symbol of this concert. At both concerts,
a large number of people got in without paying.
Tickets to the first Woodstock were $18 in advance
(about $72 in 1994 dollars) for the three days, and
150,000 to 200,000 people were expected, but when
thousands more came, it became a free event, with
nearly half a million people attending. In 1994, tick-
ets cost $135; about 190,000 people bought tickets,
but another 100,000 or so snuck in without paying.
From the beginning, there were major differ-
ences. Woodstock Ventures’ Michael Lang, a copro-
ducer of the original festival, joined with John Scher
of Metropolitan Talent to produce Woodstock ’94,
with huge corporate sponsorship from coproducerThe Nineties in America Woodstock concerts 933
“Godfather of Soul” James Brown opens Woodstock 1999 on July 23, 1999, in Rome, New York. The weekend festival ended in violence
and disorder.(AP/Wide World Photos)