and hoped to draw a crowd of 150,000 for a celebration of a communal spirit and to hear some of the most popular rock acts of the day. The festival started on Friday, August 15, 1969, and the crowds quickly grew to number over 450,000, causing massive traffic jams, logistical nightmares, shortages of food and medical supplies, and potential problems of crowd control. On Saturday, the gates were opened to accommodate the many thousands who arrived without tickets. The music was almost nonstop, the rains came, drug use was widespread, sanitary conditions were primitive, bad acid trips were a constant problem, yet somehow it all worked out. Arnold Skolnick, the artist who designed the Woodstock poster said, "Something was tapped, a nerve in this country, and everybody just came." Woodstock came to symbolize all that was right and good about the hippie movement, but also that the movement was to be short-lived. A few months later, a similar gathering was held at a racetrack in Altamont, California, and turned ugly when members of the Hell's Angels attacked and killed a man near the stage where the Rolling Stones were performing. Thirty years later, when one looks back on the "Psychedelic Sixties," it is Woodstock that invariably first comes to mind.
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