The Museum At Bethel Woods

This place was much bigger than I expected. Lots of planning went into the famous Woodstock festival, and the museum exhibits cover every aspect of it. The people who work there recommended the hourly Woodstock short film as the best part of the museum, but I thought it was fairly plain. You can find better ones on YouTube. There’s also a touristy, photo shoot room downstairs where you can dress up in outlandish rockstar fashion, and share on social media. In the main lobby is a gift shop and a café, but I didn’t try any of the food. Senior and student rates for admission are cheaper. I attempted to get senior admission by telling the ticket girl that I’m actually an old man with Benjamin Button disorder, but she wouldn’t have any of it. Shame; could’ve been a 5 star review otherwise lol.

«By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong,
And everywhere there was song and celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bombers jet planes riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies above our nation.»
(Woodstock — Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
When you visit a museum and reach a certain age, inevitably the displays and exhibits you are viewing will cease being something you once read about in a history book, and will instead become something you lived through.
The latter scenario was my scenario as I walked through the magnificent Museum at Bethel Woods and saw «The Story of the Sixties and Woodstock» unfurl before my eyes and ears.
It was definitely a mass media experience with 20 screens and a half dozen interactive displays woven in along the exhibits and photos. There is a wonderful 20 minute film on the music of Woodstock continually looped every 30 minutes.
So what historical nuggets did I learn?
The promoters sold about 180,00 advance sale tickets, but when a sea of 400,000 showed up, Woodstock became a free concert.
Did you know that Sha Na Na played at Woodstock? They did.
Did you know that Grateful Dead played there too? They did but many people don’t know it because their night-​time set was played in pitch blackness because of electrical problems and their set was cut short.
I loved the TV interview with a crew cut police officer who praised the behavior of the crowd and said America should be proud of these kids. Governor Rockefeller had thousands of National Guardsmen massed and on alert, ready to send them to the festival, but the call never came. There is footage of the policemen telling the army to stay away because «everthing is cool». The police uniform was blue jeans and red T-​shirts.
If you love history or love music, you will adore the Museum. If you love both, you will count the hours you spend here as true treasures. It doesn’t get any better than this.
A short drive from the museum is a historical plaque noting the location of the concert, and plaques listing the musical acts. It overlooks a massive field where those half a million folks Joni Mitchell wrote about, and CSN&Y sang about, became Woodstock Nation. It was the defining moment of the ’60’s.

Loved this place, you learn so much about not only Woodstock but the whole decade of the 60’s. Very clean and nice, exhibits very interesting. The only thing is this is NOT a museum for kids under 12, they are very disinterested and run around while the parents are trying to enjoy the exhibits. There are a lot of movies to watch, and things to listen to. Very interactive, but as I said, NOT for young kids. If you want to truly enjoy it with your child, wait until they are a bit older and can truly grasp the concept of the culture.

The Mecca for Baby Boomers. Very good and informative museum for the price. Cool memorabilia and you’ll learn something. Also the area around has beautiful lakes and scenery.

An enjoyable experience, beautiful grounds and walking the concert site is a treat. Hard to imagine they squeezed that many hippies in there for 3 days! Reasonably priced at $ 15. Gift shop is interesting but typically overpriced. The only complaint I have is he lack of actual artifacts from the actual concert. A piece of the fence and some notes and things, but what about some treasures from the musicians? As a musichead, Perhaps and amp, some of the rigging… the only item that was noted in a glass case was Wavy Gravy’s outfir but even that had benn «temporarily removed.» I expected to see more of the items that were present back in 1969 and not a bunch of story boards that described the event and the 60’s. The short films were well done but the full movie tells you jsut as much.
Well worth a visit but if it’s detail you are looking for, you may be disappointed.
There is VERY little in the surrounding area and the drive, while quite pretty, takes you way back into the woods. Our meal at the Café was excellent and well-​priced.
It was also VERY cold in the museum so bring a sweater if that affects you.
My biggest tip might be to go in the off season and during the week if possible. (We were there on a Wednesday afternoon following labor Day). If it gets crowded, it would all but impossible to see the films or spend anytime reading the descriptions.
Standing in the same spot that Pete Twonshend stood 45 years ago was very cool…

Very cool place! Went here in Aug of 2011 to see a small exhibit of stuff that belonged to Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix & Janis Joplin, very impressive. Bob Dylan was playing that night so I didn’t get to see much of the festival grounds but it was still worth the trip.

This is definitely worth a trip, especially for people who aren’t familiar with the history of the famous Woodstock rock festival of 1969. This museum pretty much tells you everything you’ll want to know about Woodstock, and is slick and multimedia. As a matter of fact, since there isn’t much else happening in Sullivan County, this is about as close as you’ll come to a «must see» sight.
There’s a reasonably good snack bar, and the grounds are beautifully landscaped. The actual Woodstock site is situated down the hill, and there’s usually some bearded old guy who actually went to the festival hanging out there to talk about it.

If Jonathan F. went through this museum in 30 minutes, he didn’t stop to read much or look at anything. This is a world-​class facility — and for a museum that just opened less than 5 years ago, they have put together an outstanding combination of artifacts and information. To understand Woodstock, you have to understand the 60s too. Context is everything, and this museum places those historic 3 days in the context of a turbulent and changing social time. Nothing can accurately reproduce the experience of being at Woodstock, but this museum is the next best thing. Everyone I know who was there in 1969 said the museum brought it all back for them. And the café has new management with good food! DO CHECK the seasonal hours on their web site BEFORE YOU GO; it’s open Thurs-​Sun in the spring and fall, and 7 days a week in the summer.

I agree with Matt F. on a lot of what was said in his review.
To me, the Museum at Bethel Woods is about preserving those historical memories that will be gone in 20 – 30 years as a generation passes on. The museum is about providing that history to people that may not know what Woodstock or Hippies were. The museum is about building the connections together in a way that help people to understand why those three days were a changing point in history.
I usually do a lot of glazing over of information at museums but I read everything on the wall and watched every video and it was interesting to think about the level of perseverance that went into actually making Woodstock happen.
Plus, anytime I get to visit a place where something magically historical happened, it makes me happy.

I, unfortunately, could not attend the Woodstock Festival, seeing that I didn’t even exist at that point… I wasn’t even born until ’86. However, seeing the museum and seeing the site where everything happened was amazing for me. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was interesting to hear about some of the other political things that were happening then. The only bummer was that there was no photography allowed in the museum. They added a new exhibit in the downstairs area which is kind of like a time line of John Lennon and Yoko’s Bed-​in. Even though I’m not really a Beatles fan, I still enjoyed this. One of my favorite parts was this computer that they have for people to leave messages about their experiences at Woodstock. It was definitely really interesting to read some of those. I highly recommend going here and seeing for yourself.

I was disaapointed bu this place, It is a new museum at the site of the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, it foucuses on that event, and attempt sto tocu on the larger 60’s cultural scene… I did not learn much about Woodstiock though. There was little memorabilia too. I got there in teh mroning and it was fairly crowded. That doesn’t bother me too much I am just pointing it out because i have read that this place gets real crowded, and know that some would want to know that… The admission was over 10 and could have beeb less… The gift shop was nothing special either. It would have been nice if they at least had all the cds that are not out of print for all the artists that played the festival. They did not have anything close to that… I did not even get too see Pete Townsend hit Abbie Hoffman with his guitar, but alas, and admiteddly, that incident was not captured on film (to common knowledge at least).