We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the most interesting Woodstock festival fact they know. Here are the wild results:
1. The New York State Thruway was jammed for 50 miles, so festival-goers eventually left their cars on the highway and hitchhiked to the festival.
2. Because other musicians were late, Richie Havens ended up performing first at Woodstock. Every time he tried ending his set, they pushed him back onstage, which is why his setlist was over two hours long.
3. During his unplanned setlist, Havens completely improvised the now legendary song "Freedom" because he ran out of music to perform.
4. The cute hippie couple from the iconic album cover is still together 50 years later.
5. Carlos Santana was so high on LSD during his performance, he thought his guitar neck was a snake.
6. Over 400,000 hippies attended the festival at Max Yasgur's farm in August 1969.
7. When Woodstock ran out of food to serve, Bethel residents donated sandwiches, eggs, olives, and anything else they had in their fridges and pantries. Because of the chaotic traffic jam, the food was flown in by helicopters.
8. There were allegedly a few babies born during the festival.
9. Woodstock Ventures hired a hippie commune, named the Hog Farm, to be their peaceful security instead of actual police officers. They called themselves a "Please Force" instead of a "Police Force."
10. There were only 600 toilets available on the grounds for the 400,000+ attendees.
11. Tickets were originally sold for $18 in advance and $24 at the site. But as the crowd started getting bigger and bigger, concert-goers broke down the fences and the festival eventually became a free event.
12. On Sunday when it started to rain, the guitarist from Country Joe & the Fish led a "No rain!" chant, and everyone joined in because they believed it'd make the rain go away.
13. Joni Mitchell was originally supposed to perform, but at the last minute her manager told her not to go because she was scheduled to appear on The Dick Cavett Show the next day. She wrote the hippie anthem, "Woodstock," just by watching the news.
14. The festival wasn't actually held in the town of Woodstock — it was held in Bethel, New York.
15. There's over 36 hours of music recorded from the festival, and most of it wasn't released until the 50th anniversary in 2019.
16. Neil Young performed at Woodstock as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but refused to be filmed for the movie.
17. And most folks left the festival early because of the rain, so only half of the attendees actually witnessed Jimi Hendrix's iconic "Star Spangled Banner" performance on Monday morning.
Note: Not all submissions are from Community users