Like all music festivals, Woodstock showcased the younger generation wearing the new styles — from bell bottoms and crop tops to knit dresses. Here we see a group as they wait for a bus to take them to the festival grounds.
Fashions of the era represented youth, from the colorful outfits that reflected vibrant optimism and expressed a romantic yearning for an equal society.
A Spiritual Opening Ceremony
The photo below shows the Indian religious teacher, Satchidananda Saraswati, conducting the opening ceremony at the festival. In a way to set the tone of this momentous event, he was also instrumental in bringing Eastern philosophies to the West.
It was a beautiful way to open such a special event, and Saraswati inspired the hundred thousand-plus crowd to chant in unison and be captivated by his words.
Another View
Here we have another view of just how big and expansive the crowd was at the opening ceremony. Swami Satchidananda first came to America in 1966; Yoga was mostly unknown here.
Health food stores only contained bottles of vitamin supplements and photos of bodybuilders. When people heard of the word yogi, they thought of a popular cartoon. All this changed when Swami Satchidananda arrived, and since his appearance at Woodstock, his ideas and teachings slowly seeped throughout America.
Traffic Jams
On August 13, two days before the festival's start, there were already traffic jams caused by the exodus of people making their way to the festival grounds in an attempt to get there early and grab a spot before it gets too crowded.
Woodstock's organizers had prepared for a crowd of 150,000, but by the second day of the festival, somewhere between 400,000 to 500,000 had already descended upon Max Yasgur's dairy farm.
Woodstock
Despite the logistical nightmares and unexpected crowds, Woodstock went off relatively hitch-free. There were barely any reported crimes, and surprisingly not nearly as many fatalities as most skeptics were expecting.
The counterculture mantra of love and peace won out with an audience that almost reached half a million and it brought people together from all over the country.