The influx of people to the rural concert site in Bethel created a huge traffic jam. The town of Bethel did not enforce its codes, fearing chaos as crowds flowed to the site. Radio and television descriptions of the traffic jams eventually discouraged people from setting off to the festival. Arlo Guthrie made an announcement that was included in the film saying that the New York State Thruway was closed, although the director of the Woodstock museum said that this did not happen. To add to the problems and difficulty in dealing with the large crowds, recent rain had created muddy roads and fields. The facilities were not adequate to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending, and hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages and poor sanitation.

The event's security was to be handled by a group of 346 off-duty New York City police officers, but the officers were forced to withdraw when they were warned that they were violating regulations against moonlighting. On the morning of Sunday, August 17, New York governor and future vice president Nelson Rockefeller called festival organizer John P. Roberts and told him that he was thinking of ordering 10,000 National Guard troops to the festival site, but Roberts persuaded him not to. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency. During the festival, personnel from nearby Stewart Air Force Base helped to ensure order and air-lifted performers in and out of the site.

Jimi Hendrix was the last to perform at the festival, taking the stage at 8:30 Monday morning after delays caused by the rain. By that point the audience numbers had fallen to about 30,000 from an estimated peak of 450,000. Many left during Hendrix's performance, having waited to catch a glimpse of him. Hendrix and his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows were introduced as the Experience, but he corrected this and added: "You could call us a Band of Gypsies". They performed a two-hour set, including his psychedelic rendition of the national anthem, which became "part of the sixties Zeitgeist" after it was captured in the Woodstock film.

The festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, although there were three recorded fatalities: two drug overdoses and another caused when a tractor ran over a 17-year-old sleeping in a nearby hayfield. Births were claimed to have occurred, one in a car caught in traffic and another in hospital after an airlift by helicopter, but extensive research by a book author could not confirm any births. Several miscarriages were reported (sources range from four to eight) and over the course of the three days there were 742 drug overdoses.

Max …

Read more on Wikipedia

The documentary film Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by a crew headed by Thelma Schoonmaker, was released in March 1970. Artie Kornfeld (one of the promoters of the festival) went to Fred Weintraub, an executive at Warner Bros., and asked for money to film the festival. Artie had been turned down everywhere else, but against the express wishes of other Warner Bros. executives, Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld $100,000 (equivalent to $830,000 today) to make the film. Woodstock helped to save Warner Bros at a time when the company was on the verge of going out of business. The book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls details the making of the film.

Wadleigh rounded up a crew of about 100 from the New York film scene. With no money to pay the crew, he agreed to a double-or-nothing scheme, in which the crew would receive double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. Wadleigh strove to make the film as much about the hippies as the music, listening to their feelings about compelling events contemporaneous with the festival (such as the Vietnam War), as well as the views of the townspeople.

Woodstock received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In 1996, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. In 1994, Woodstock: The Director's Cut was released and expanded to include Janis Joplin as well as additional performances by Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Canned Heat not seen in the original version of the film. In 2009, the expanded 40th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD. This release marked the film's first availability on Blu-ray.
Woodstock Diaries was produced by D. A. Pennebaker in 1994 as a three-part TV documentary miniseries. It was intended to commemorate Woodstock's 25th anniversary and included rare performances and interviews with many of the concert's producers, including Joel Rosenman, John Roberts and Michael Lang.

Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock was produced in 2005 as two-disc set that included all available footage of Hendrix's Woodstock performance in two different edits. The release also included a mini-documentary with members of Hendrix's band, and footage of a September 1969 news conference where he discussed his Woodstock set.

Taking Woodstock was produced in 2009 by Taiwanese American filmmaker Ang Lee. Lee practically rented out the entire town of New Lebanon, New York, to shoot the film. He was initially concerned with not angering the locals, but they ended up being very welcoming and willing to help. The movie is based on Elliot Tiber, played by Demetri Martin, and his role in bringing Woodstock to Bethel, New York. The film also starred Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang, Daniel Eric Gold as Joel Rosenman, and Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton as Jake and Sonia Teichberg.

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation is a documentary by Barak Goodman, produced in 2019 by PBS. It focused on Woodstock's social and political context and contained previously unseen footage supplemented by voice-over anecdotes from people at the festival. It focused more on the scenes in the crowd (and around the country) than on the stage.

Creating …

Read more on Wikipedia

In the years immediately following the festival, Woodstock co-producers John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, along with Robert Pilpel, wrote Young Men with Unlimited Capital: The Inside Story of the Legendary Woodstock Festival Told By The Two People Who Paid for It, a book about the events behind the scenes during the production of the Woodstock Festival.

Bethel voters did not re-elect Supervisor Amatucci in an election held in November 1969 because of his role in bringing the festival to the town and the upset attributed to some residents. Although accounts vary, it was decided by only a small margin of between six and fifty votes. The New York State Legislature and the Town of Bethel also enacted mass gathering laws designed to prevent anymore festivals from occurring.

Approximately 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock Ventures, primarily by farmers in the area. The movie financed settlements and paid off the $1.4 million of debt (equivalent to $11.6 million today) Roberts and Rosenman had incurred from the festival. Max Yasgur refused to rent out his farm for a 1970 revival of the festival, saying, "As far as I know, I'm going back to running a dairy farm." Yasgur died in 1973.

In 1984, at the original festival site, land owners Louis Nicky and June Gelish put up a monument marker with plaques called "Peace and Music" by a local sculptor from nearby Bloomingburg, Wayne C. Saward.

Attempts were made to prevent people from visiting the site. Its owners spread chicken manure, and during one anniversary, tractors and state police cars formed roadblocks. Twenty thousand people gathered at the site in 1989 during an impromptu 20th anniversary celebration. In 1997 a community group put up a welcoming sign for visitors. Unlike Bethel, the town of Woodstock made several efforts to capitalize on its connection. Bethel's stance eventually changed and the town began to embrace the festival. Efforts were undertaken to forge a link between Bethel and Woodstock.