The Woodstock Music and Art Fair , commonly referred to as Woodstock , was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, , on Max Yasgur 's dairy farm in Bethel, New York , [ 6 ] [ 7 ] 40 miles 65 km southwest of the town of Woodstock. The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as a defining event for the silent and baby boomer generations. Musical events bearing the Woodstock name were planned for anniversaries, including the 10th , 20th , 25th , 30th , 40th , and 50th.
Early in , Roberts and Rosenman were New York City entrepreneurs who were in the process of building Mediasound , a recording studio complex in Manhattan. Lang and Kornfeld's lawyer, Miles Lourie, who had done legal work on the Mediasound project, suggested that they contact Roberts and Rosenman about financing a similar but much smaller studio, Kornfeld, that Lang hoped to build in Woodstock , New York.
Unpersuaded by this Studio-in-the-Woods proposal, Roberts and Rosenman counter-proposed a concert featuring the kind of artists known to frequent the Woodstock area, such as Bob Dylan and the Band. Kornfeld and Lang agreed to the new plan, and Woodstock Ventures was formed in January Burt Cohen and his design group, Curtain Call Productions, oversaw the psychedelic transformation of the office. From the start there were differences in approach among the four.
Roberts was disciplined and knew what was needed for the venture to succeed, while the laid-back Lang saw Woodstock as a new, "relaxed" way of bringing entrepreneurs together.
Similar differences about financial discipline made Roberts and Rosenman wonder whether to pull the plug or to continue pumping money into the project. Creedence drummer Doug Clifford later commented: "Once Creedence signed, everyone else jumped in line and all the other big acts came on. Woodstock was conceived as a profit-making venture.
