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57 free Hard Woodstock trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This is the hard Woodstock trivia quiz. If you already know it happened on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, that Richie Havens opened and Jimi Hendrix closed, and that Joni Mitchell wrote the song without being there, these 57 questions go much deeper: the first band to sign a contract, the cowboy star asked to close the show, the guitarist who broke up his own band to avoid playing, the studio the financiers were really trying to build, and the couple on the soundtrack cover. The set covers the planning and the money, the acts who declined or missed the festival, the sound and lighting crews, the medical and security story, the Oscar-winning film and its editors, the soundtrack albums and box sets, Woodstock '94, '99 and the cancelled Woodstock 50, and what became of the site. It is written for people who have read The Road to Woodstock and Young Men with Unlimited Capital, not just watched the movie. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source before publishing and each question carries its citation. For a warm-up, start with our main Woodstock trivia quiz and then come back for this one.
30 of 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which band was the first act to sign a contract for Woodstock, in April 1969?
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival signed in April 1969, and drummer Doug Clifford said everyone else jumped in line once they had; the band went on at 12:30 am Sunday, after the Grateful Dead.
Q 02Which frontman kept his band out of the 1970 Woodstock film, feeling their set was unworthy?
John Fogerty
John Fogerty thought the band's 12:30 am set, played after the Grateful Dead to a dozing crowd, was not up to standard and vetoed its use; an official Live at Woodstock album of all 11 songs finally appeared in 2019.
Q 03Roughly how many advance tickets were sold for Woodstock before it turned into a free concert?
186,000
About 186,000 advance tickets were sold at $18 for three days, only at New York-area record stores or by mail to a Radio City Station post office box; the gate price was to be $24.
Q 04What were John Roberts and Joel Rosenman building in Manhattan when approached about Woodstock?
A recording studio called Mediasound
Roberts and Rosenman were converting a former Manhattan church into a recording studio called Mediasound; Lang and Kornfeld sought money for a smaller studio upstate, and the pair counter-proposed a concert that became Woodstock Ventures.
Q 05Which Saugerties property, considered and rejected for the 1969 festival, ended up hosting Woodstock '94?
Winston Farm
Winston Farm in Saugerties was the site Lang and Kornfeld wrongly believed they had secured in 1969; twenty-five years later it hosted Woodstock '94, drawing an estimated 350,000 people.
Q 06Which body of water formed the backdrop to the Woodstock stage and became a popular skinny-dipping spot?
Filippini Pond
Filippini Pond lay directly behind the stage at the foot of the sloping alfalfa field that formed a natural bowl; throughout the weekend festival-goers bathed in it nude.
Q 07Local opponents of the festival put up signs urging people to boycott what?
Max Yasgur's milk
One sign read 'Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival'. Yasgur was the largest milk producer in Sullivan County, with about 650 cows.
Q 08How many National Guard troops did Governor Rockefeller consider sending to the festival?
10,000
Roberts talked him out of it. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency, and Stewart Air Force Base helicopters ferried performers in and out.
Q 09Why did the 346 off-duty NYPD officers meant to handle Woodstock security withdraw?
A warning about breaking rules on moonlighting
The Hog Farm commune ended up as the 'Please Force', armed, in Wavy Gravy's words, with cream pies and seltzer bottles.
Q 10Introduced at Woodstock as the Experience, what did Hendrix say his group could be called?
A Band of Gypsies
Hendrix told the crowd his new line-up, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, was 'nothin' but a Band of Gypsies'; he went on around 9 am Monday, after most of the crowd had left, to perhaps 30,000 people.
Q 11Besides two drug overdoses, the third recorded death at Woodstock was caused by what?
A tractor running over a sleeping teenager
The 17-year-old was asleep in a nearby hayfield. Despite claims, an author's extensive research could not confirm a single birth at the festival.
Q 12Which sound engineer built the Woodstock PA, nicknamed the 'Woodstock Bins'?
Bill Hanley
Bill Hanley designed the system for a crowd of 150,000 to 200,000; each half-ton plywood 'Woodstock Bin' held four 15-inch JBL speakers, and the arrays sat on towers flanking the stage.
Q 13The live performances at Woodstock were captured backstage in a tractor trailer on what equipment?
Q 21Which singing cowboy star was asked to close Woodstock with 'Happy Trails' but declined?
Roy Rogers
Michael Lang wanted Roy Rogers to close the festival with 'Happy Trails', the theme his wife Dale Evans had written, but Rogers declined; Hendrix ended up closing on Monday morning instead.
Q 22The Rolling Stones declined Woodstock partly because Mick Jagger was in Australia filming which movie?
Ned Kelly
Jagger spent the summer of 1969 in Australia shooting Tony Richardson's Ned Kelly, and Keith Richards' girlfriend Anita Pallenberg had just given birth to their son Marlon; the Stones instead headlined Altamont that December.
Q 23Which pop star turned down Woodstock after his secretary called it a 'pig farmer' who 'wants you to play in his field'?
Two 8-track Scully recorders
Eddie Kramer's crew ran two Scully 8-track recorders in a trailer behind the stage, rolling tape at 15 inches per second; Kramer later mixed the recordings at the Record Plant in New York.
Q 14Which extra job was lighting designer Chip Monck handed at the last minute at Woodstock?
Master of ceremonies
Michael Lang realised he had forgotten to hire a master of ceremonies, so Chip Monck announced acts and delivered the 'brown acid' warning; most of his rented lighting sat unused because the stage roof could not bear it.
Q 15Apple Corps offered which act to Woodstock by letter, just as the promoters were losing the Wallkill site?
The Plastic Ono Band
Apple's letter offered John Lennon's new Plastic Ono Band, since the Beatles were busy recording Abbey Road; the group never appeared, and its first live show came at Toronto's Rock and Roll Revival in September 1969.
Q 16Which guitarist said he deliberately broke up his band before Woodstock because he did not want it 'preserved'?
Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck said he deliberately broke up the Jeff Beck Group beforehand because he did not want it 'preserved' on film; his pianist Nicky Hopkins played Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane instead.
Q 17Bill Graham forced Chicago out of Woodstock so which band he managed could take the slot?
Santana
Graham also won a coin toss with Michael Lang over whether It's a Beautiful Day or Santana would play. Santana's debut album had not even been released.
Q 18Which Doors member appeared as a guest with Creed at Woodstock '99?
Robby Krieger
Robby Krieger joined Creed for 'Roadhouse Blues' and 'Riders on the Storm' at Woodstock '99; he has said the Doors declined the 1969 festival fearing a second-class repeat of Monterey Pop.
Q 19Which band on the Woodstock Sunday poster never played, stuck at LaGuardia demanding helicopters?
Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly waited at LaGuardia demanding a helicopter; production coordinator John Morris replied with a telegram whose first letters spelled out a rude acrostic telling them to find other transportation, and they never played.
Q 20Which television programme did Joni Mitchell's manager insist she appear on instead of playing Woodstock?
The Dick Cavett Show
Her manager kept her in New York for The Dick Cavett Show, taped the Monday after the festival; she wrote 'Woodstock' in a hotel room watching TV reports and first played it at Big Sur a month later.
Tommy James
Tommy James and the Shondells were in Hawaii at the time. James said they realised what they had missed a couple of days later.
Q 24Which New York Times editorial headline compared Woodstock's crowd to lemmings marching into the sea?
Nightmare in the Catskills
The Times' 'Nightmare in the Catskills' editorial of August 1969 likened the crowd's impulses to lemmings marching to their deaths in the sea; 'Hippies Mired in a Sea of Mud' and 'Traffic Uptight at Hippiefest' were Daily News headlines.
Q 25How did the Middletown Times Herald-Record get Woodstock stories and photos to its office 35 miles away?
By motorcyclist
With the roads jammed, the Middletown paper relayed copy and film to its office by motorcyclist; it had editorialised against the Wallkill ban and printed a rare Saturday edition during the festival.
Q 26Which Warner Bros. executive put his job on the line to give Artie Kornfeld $100,000 to film Woodstock?
Fred Weintraub
Fred Weintraub, the former Bitter End club owner newly hired at Warner Bros., staked his job on the $100,000 after Kornfeld had been turned down everywhere else; the film's success is credited with helping rescue the struggling studio.
Q 27How did director Michael Wadleigh pay his roughly 100-person film crew at Woodstock?
A double-or-nothing deal tied to box-office success
The crew would get double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. It grossed about $50 million on a $600,000 budget.
Q 28Which Woodstock editor earned a rare Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing on a documentary?
Thelma Schoonmaker
Thelma Schoonmaker was nominated for Best Film Editing for Woodstock, a rarity for a documentary; she went on to a lifelong partnership with Martin Scorsese and won her first Oscar for Raging Bull.
Q 29How long is the 1994 director's cut of the Woodstock film?
224 minutes
The 1994 director's cut runs 224 minutes against 185 for the 1970 release; the added footage includes Janis Joplin plus more Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix and Canned Heat.
Q 30In how many theatres did the Woodstock film open on March 26, 1970?
Seven
It opened in seven theatres, in Boston, Coral Gables, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Washington, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.