1969 Ads: Woodstock and Other Festivals

Selected '69 Voice ads for various festivals--most local, some quite a ways away. Includes a few fine examples of peripheral-to-Woodstock commercialism.

As Howard Smith wrote in his 5/1/69 "Scenes" column, "This summer the magic youth word is 'festival.' There will be rocking sons and daughters of the Monterey Pop Festival all over the country all summer long." [The article also has a report on a discotheque called the Church, located in a deconsecrated Lutheran church at 407 W. 37th Street...and you thought Peter Gatien came up with that idea first!]

5/29/69 issue.

6/12/69 issue.

6/12/69 issue. Kinda ambitious to label this one a fest.

7/3/69 issue.

7/10/69 issue. No mention of actual 7-UP sponsorship though.

7/10/69 issue. A report on the subsequent scramble to find a new location appears in the 7/24/69 "Scenes" column.

7/17/69 issue. I have a radio ad for this, and while searching on youtube to see if anyone had uploaded it, I found this silent footage instead.

7/24/69 issue. "The Original Woodstock Saugerties Sound," lest anyone get confused.

7/31/69 issue. Hey, they didn't know the New York State Thruway would get closed, man!

7/31/69 issue.

7/31 and 8/7/69 issues.

8/7/69 issue.

8/7/69 issue. I cannot look at these bus ads without getting a "Going Up the Country" earworm.

8/7/69 issue.

8/7/69 issue--corrected location.

8/14/69 issue.

8/14/69 issue.

8/14/69 issue.

8/28/69 issue.

Perhaps the single finest eyewitness account of Woodstock I've ever read appears in the 8/21/69 issue. And there are some reports on the fallout from the fest's aftermath in the 9/4/69, 10/2/69, and 10/23/69 issues. Dig this non-prescient excerpt from the 11/6/69 "Scenes" column too, complete with Gainsbourgian bonus.

UPDATE 3/15/2012:  Here is a revised and improved post on 1969 festival ads.