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From head shop owner to co-creator of the greatest music festival in history, the cool, calm and collected Michael Lang cemented his place in rock legend as soon as the late Richie Havens stepped out onto the stage at the first Woodstock Music & Arts Festival.

The previous year you’d produced the Miami Pop festival so you’d already had experience of rock event organisation.

I think a lot of the success had to with our planning. We’d done a lot of groundwork. I’d been to a whole bunch of shows that year and noticed violent undercurrents particularly when it came to people without tickets wanting to get in for free. We wanted to ensure that anybody that came to our event was welcomed. Of course, in the original plan we had gates and tickets booths! But we also had free kitchens, free stages, free camping grounds. We had collectives like the Hog Farm who helped kids from the city who had never been to the country. They all encouraged people to share and help other. Woodstock wasn’t a mainstream festival. The counterculture was heading to an event run by their own. We just avoided the silly confrontations that stupid rules can create.