There's a well-known cultural trope that far more people claim to have attended Woodstock in 1969 than the actual 400,000 who were there. As a symbol of the 1960s counterculture, Woodstock's legendary status has led to a kind of "memory inflation," where many exaggerate or fabricate their connection to the event. It's often joked that if everyone who said they went had actually gone, the festival would have stretched across the entire state of New York.
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Is there an actual study on this trying to quantify it?
The population of the usa in '69 was 200 million, so at almost half a million people at woodstock that would mean that 1 in 400 people alive in '69 had attended the festival... Thats pretty huge when you think about it. 0.25% of the entire population at a single festival, thats massive!
speaking strictly anecdotally, most of the people I've met from that that era, that would have been of age range to attend woodstock, told me they had either gone or tried to go and didn't make it. None ever supplied details.
One even said he got a ride home from Bruce Springsteen, who I don't believe ever said he went to Woodstock.
I dont doubt for a second there are plenty of people who lie about it. Its the sort of thing i expect people to make up.
But I'd be curious what the actual numbers are around that.. cause at ~1% of people alive today (and 0.25% of people alive at the time) thats a pretty massive section of the population.
I never met a single person who had claimed to go to Woodstock, so my personal experience differs, but thats another matter.
