The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is an amphitheatre, performing arts center and museum located at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair in Bethel, New York. Located approximately 90 miles (140 km) from New York City, the 800-acre (3.2 km2) site includes a 15,000-seat outdoor concert venue, a 1,000-seat outdoor terrace stage, an intimate 440-seat indoor hall, and the Museum at Bethel
- Venue
- Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
- Town
- New York, US
The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is an amphitheatre, performing arts center and museum located at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair in Bethel, New York. Located approximately 90 miles (140 km) from New York City, the 800-acre (3.2 km2) site includes a 15,000-seat outdoor concert venue, a 1,000-seat outdoor terrace stage, an intimate 440-seat indoor hall, and the Museum at Bethel Woods. Concerts run June through September and feature many types of music genres. In 1996, Alan Gerry, a longtime Liberty, New York, resident and founder of Cablevision Industries, created a not-for-profit organization named the Gerry Foundation with the intent of revitalizing the economy of Sullivan County, which had faced severe hardships following the collapse of the Borscht Belt tourism industry of the Catskills. That same year, the Foundation purchased the original 37-acre (0.15 km2) Woodstock festival field and hundreds of acres surrounding it, with eventual plans for an arts center. In 1998, the Foundation hosted a three-day festival on the site named "Day in the Garden", and in 1999 hosted a four-day celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock. Planning for the arts center, designed by architectural firm DLR Group, began in 2002, and construction on the $150 million project started two years later. The amphitheatre opened on July 4, 2006, with a performance by the New York Philharmonic. On August 13, 2006, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed before 16,000 fans at the new center, 37 years after their historic performance at Woodstock. For their encore, they performed the song "Woodstock". The on-site museum, exploring the 1969 Woodstock festival and the culture of the 1960s, opened in June 2008. In 2012, Bethel Woods was spun off from the Gerry Foundation into its own 501(c)(3) public nonprofit. The next year, the site opened a conservatory dedicated to expanding youth and teen education programs. Bethel Woods features a 7,500-square-foot (700 m