Museum at Bethel Woods
17 USD
Flyctory.com Pros
- Being at the legendary Woodstock Festival Ground
- Very illustrative and interactive museum
flycOn the second day of my Weird Al Yankovic tour-chasing trip in April 2022, I was gifted to visit a very special and famous place of music history: Bethel Woods, home of the legendary Woodstock Festival. Even though there is still an open air music venue at this location (which is very high on my bucket list), this visit concentrated on what has happened in 1969. Nowadays, you can visit the Museum at Bethel Woods, which illustrates the history of the festival.





Museum at Bethel Woods – Location & Admission
Bethel in New York State is located South of the Catskill Mountains in Upper New York State. You should visit the area by car, public transport options are rather limited. There are huge parking facilities at the museum due to the open air venue, which is hosting quite a lot of big North American acts in summer. By the way, Bethel Woods is located some sixty miles / 90 minutes away from the city of Woodstock.
The museum is opening daily from 10:00 to 17:00 hrs. If you pre-book your tickets, it is 17 USD (adult admission). Parking is free. There is also the possibility to have walk around the area and have an augmented reality experience of what has happened in 1969. This requires an additional fee – I did not do this part due to the bad weather at this day.

Museum at Bethel Woods – The Museum
The museum starts way before the Woodstock Music & Art Fair presents An Aquarian Exposition (yeah, that’s the official full name) in fact took place. The first steps of the colorful presentation take you back in time and explain you how the world has been on global level. However, then the museum is of course focusing on the festival itself. You get a really good overview, especially about why the organizers had to move the location from the original grounds in Saugerties near Woodstock, NY, to its in fact place. The Museum at Bethel Woods feels to give a very truthful overview – including, how the original plans to have a commercial music and arts finally failed or how the local people reacted when the Woodstock Festival lead to a chaotic traffic situation.














Of course, you also learn how the festival itself has been. There are a lot of interactive screens where you can see snippets and rather long excerpts of the show. For that reason, there are also major screens including a cinema-alike seating.





Museum at Bethel Woods – Basement Exhibits
In addition to the museum itself, the building hosts some information on basement level. The most eye-catching one is likely an original speaker. However, you will also find all artists, their setlists and some snaps and background information. Even if you learn it in the museum already, this part of my Bethel Woods illustrated to me, how much the original schedule of the festival has been missed. In fact, the concert lasted until Monday morning, the 18th August 1969, instead of Sunday evening, as intended.



The basement also hosts a temporary exhibition space, which held a Woodstock festival arts selection during my visit.




Museum at Bethel Woods – Original Festival Ground
Independent from a visit of the museum, you may have a visit to the original festival grounds. Close to the original location of the state, there is a memorial sign and some information. There are also some parking lots.




Museum at Bethel Woods – Services
At the end of your museum visit, you pass the museum shop, which has a really nice and wide selection of items. The lobby also hosts a cafe for dining – however, it is closing significantly before the museum is closing, which I felt rather bothering.



Museum at Bethel Woods – My View
Bethel Woods is a magical place. The museum is really nicely made up and tells the story of one of the most important events of popular music in a really nice way. The only really bothering thing is that the location is rather remote – but that’s part of the story of Woodstock. I absolutely recommend the museum visit to any music lover.
Musical History
These are all articles, in which I dealt with events and places influencing musical history:
Even though there is the new Grand Ole Opry building (which I, for example, visited on 18 March 2022), the ...
Read More
Even though Patsy Cline died at the age of 30, she is still regarded to be one of the most ...
Read More
Johnny Cash - do I really need to say anything about this living country music legend? Cash is having its ...
Read More
Iceland is indeed a country, which is famous for its broad music culture. There are several Icelandic acts, which became ...
Read More
Without a doubt, the Scala in Milan is one of the most famous opera houses in the world. While I ...
Read More
The Austrian band Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung (hard to translate without spoiling it, it is an ironic wordplay with Versicherung = ...
Read More
What do Icelandic people do if there is a public toilet in the heart of their capital, which they don't ...
Read More
Without a doubt, Luciano Pavarotti is one of the biggest music legends in recent history. The Italian is regarded to ...
Read More
Undoubtedly, Munich Olympic Tower is one of the iconic buildings of the Bavarian city. Even though the tower is located ...
Read More
Gronau in the Münsterland region in Western Germany calls itself the "Music City". The some 50,000 inhabitant town is definitely not the ...
Read More
Venice is not only the city of vaporetto rides, Murano glass and the doges - it also has quite a ...
Read More
Right before I watched the match of my Pittsburgh Penguins at Staples Center vs. the Los Angeles Kings, I strolled ...
Read More
A museum about drums and percussion? Sounds like a perfect visit for a travel(, sports) and music website! Before I ...
Read More
The Memphis Recording Service, Sun Studio or Sun Records (however you like to call it) is one of the most ...
Read More
On my very final stage on the road to the 2019 CMA Fest in Nashville, visiting the West Tennessee Heritage ...
Read More
Memphis and the surrounding area is so full of music history - it is not that surprising that there are ...
Read More
After I dealt with visiting the Graceland Mansion in a separate posting, the second part of my review of Graceland ...
Read More
Even if Elvis was born in Tupelo and there are so many other great musicians (which you can for example ...
Read More
Nashville is the dominating super-city of music in Tennessee, despite there is so much musical history in Memphis as well ...
Read More
Even more than 80 years after Elvis Presley's birth, Tupelo in Mississippi is still dominated by memories of its most ...
Read More
If you drive the US-61 between Tunica, Mississippi, and Memphis, you just cannot miss the iconic wooden building called Gateway To ...
Read More
The final day of my trip report to Nashville. The tour is coming to an end, the next days, I ...
Read More
After driving quite a bunch of miles the two days before, 4th June was planned to be a sightseeing day ...
Read More
3rd June 2019 on my trip to Nashville was "Elvis Presley Day". Waking up less than a mile away from ...
Read More
Oxford is full of amazing collections. Many of them are driven by University institutes. This leads to two key advantages: ...
Read More
What is more characteristic about Liverpool than John, Paul, George and Ringo? It is not too surprising that one of ...
Read More
US Hotel Reviews
Here all reviews on hotels & other accommodation in the USA:
While I typically prefer Hilton Hotels, I had the last night of my March 2022 trip with the Pittsburgh Penguins ...
Read More
The last show of my Weird Al Yankovic tour-chasing in April 2022 took place in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Thus, after ...
Read More
For the very first night of my Weird Al Yankovic trip in April 2022, I needed to have a reasonably ...
Read More
Right before I had the third and last Weird Al Yankovic concert during my April 2022 trip through New England, ...
Read More
A hotel right across Enterprise Center for a reasonable price? The OYO Hotel St. Louis Downtown City Center just felt ...
Read More
The very first night of my Pittsburgh Penguins trip in March 2022 lead me to New York City. Finally, my ...
Read More
As central as it gets: not only during the CMA Fest week, the Hilton Nashville Downtown offers a perfect location ...
Read More
During my 2020 tour following the Pittsburgh Penguins on their West Coast away matches, the only hotel I had multiple ...
Read More
On the last full day in America on my trip following the Pittsburgh Penguins on their 2019/20 West Coast away ...
Read More
After one night in Homestead, I had three additional nights at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Green Tree during my ...
Read More
On my December 2019 trip to Pittsburgh, I had to book an additional night as I had to reschedule my ...
Read More
During my trip to Chicago and Indianapolis, I spent the first night as a transfer in Schererville in Northwest Indiana, ...
Read More
While I am typically more of a Hilton Hotels person, I chose a Marriott Group hotel for my stay in ...
Read More
It does not happen too often that I sleep in a hotel which has a detailed Wikipedia entry. This did ...
Read More
I originally booked a Home 2 Suites close to one of the Premium Outlets, but a very competitive rate made ...
Read More
Right after visiting the Tennis Hall of Fame Open, I spent the fourth night of my Weird Al Yankovic & ...
Read More
As staying at the Foxwood Casinos in Mashantucket, Conneticut, was more on the pricey side, I I chose a hotel ...
Read More
After I made my trip to Nashville, my stay during the CMA Fest 2019 was the Hampton Inn Nashville-Airport. I ...
Read More
In order to be able to visit Graceland and many other attractions in Memphis on my trip to CMA Fest ...
Read More
After flying from Washington to Chattanooga, my first night on my trip to Nashville in 2019 was in Tupelo Mississippi ...
Read More
The first stage of my trip to Nashville in 2019 brought me to Washington. As I had a flight connection ...
Read More
During my February 2019 visit to Philadelphia featuring the NHL Stadium Series match and my round trip with Southern Airways ...
Read More
Cooking facilities are much more popular in North American hotels than in European ones. Even quite lousy motel rooms typically ...
Read More
As we were aiming to visit Busch Gardens on our December 2018 trip, my wife and I chose the Hampton ...
Read More
After I had to book another hotel right across the street for the first night to get a low airfare, ...
Read More
Post Views:
123