Bethel Woods Marks Woodstock Anniversary with Rare Look Behind the Festival

BETHEL, N.Y. — Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is commemorating the anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair with a week of special programs that go beyond the music, bringing together original organizers, historians and legendary photographers while offering new insight into how the iconic festival came together.

Museum Curator Neil Hitch says this year’s programming is designed to reveal the people and planning behind Woodstock.

“We’ve tried to do something kind of special,” Hitch said. “This year is kind of over the top.”

The centerpiece of Monday’s events is an interactive workshop built around what organizers believe is the first formal organizational chart of Woodstock Ventures, the company that produced the festival.

Hitch said he and Professor Ted Klein have spent months identifying more than 180 people connected to Woodstock and documenting how the organization functioned. The resulting chart, printed at four feet by 30 feet, will be displayed as participants help identify people in photographs and add historical context.

The evening concludes with a conversation featuring Joel Rosenman, one of the four founders of Woodstock Ventures.

“We often think about Woodstock as this thing that was crazy and happened,” Hitch said. “But it was a business. It was a business venture. It was organized with about eight months of planning.”

Hitch called Rosenman’s appearance at Bethel Woods a unique opportunity.

“It’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear Joel Rosenman speak on-site,” he said.

On Tuesday, two of rock music’s most celebrated photographers—Henry Diltz and Bob Gruen—will share the stage for the first time at Bethel Woods. Moderated by Rona Elliott, the program will feature stories and photographs spanning decades of rock history.

The anniversary week continues Wednesday with a Horizon Happy Hour performance by Albany-based funk jam band Space Carnival before the venue launches into a weekend of concerts, ending Sunday with Brandi Carlile.

Hitch said the events also represent the beginning of a much larger effort.

“This is the 20th anniversary of Bethel Woods this year,” he said. “But this is the 20th to the 60th for the museum at Bethel Woods.”

Planning, he said, is already underway for Woodstock’s 60th anniversary in 2029.

Another highlight comes Thursday, when the museum will formally accept the “Woodstock Watch,” an artifact connected to the Rev. Paul Boger, an Orange County pastor who volunteered with the festival’s clergy services.

According to Hitch, Boger discovered the watch in the mud as he was leaving the festival. He later wrote that the timepiece became a symbol that Woodstock never truly ended—that he could look at it and imagine the festival continuing in time.

The watch will become a centerpiece of the museum’s upcoming exhibition, Lost and Found, planned for 2027 and 2028.

Image: A still from the film “You Can’t Refuse” by David Shellburne, who was a film major at The Ohio State University when he attended Woodstock. “You Can’t Refuse” was his final thesis project and will be screened August 10 and 11 at The Museum at Bethel Woods. (David Shelburne)