In the summer of 1970, concert promoters promised a mind-blowing, three-day rock festival at the Powder Ridge ski resort in Middlefield, Conn. On grassy slopes, the kids would listen to Fleetwood 
Mac, Sly and the Family Stone, James Taylor, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Van Morrison and Little Richard — to name a few.
Promoters sold 60,000 tickets to the concert, which was to run from July 31 to August 2. Then on July 30, the Town of Middlefield stepped in and got a court order halting the show. The town posted warning signs on the roads leading to the ski resort, “Festival Prohibited, turn back.”
Thirty-thousand rock ‘n roll enthusiasts showed up anyway. “Kids Run the Rock Blockade to Beat the Ban” ran one headline.
A hippie in front of his tent at Powder Ridge
The kids found spots for their motorcycles, mattress-lined campers and psychedelic buses, then they set up camp with multicolored tents and flags. Without music, they turned their attention to taking drugs and roaming around naked. It was sex and drugs and no rock and roll, the greatest nonfestival ever.
Here are seven fun facts about the Powder Ridge Rock Festival.
1. Only one big-name artist showed up, Melanie.
The folk singer had just had an international hit, “Lay Down (Candle in the Wind),” inspired by her experience performing at Woodstock. She came and sang despite threats of arrest and a 10-year jail sentence. The state had shut down the electricity, hoping that would drive the kids away. So, Mister Softee ice cream trucks powered the stage. Officials discussed arresting Melanie, but decided against it when they learned she didn’t get paid for singing.
Some local bands did play, too, like Swan and The Mustard Family.
Melanie in 1970
2. Powder Ridge wasn’t the only rock festival cancelled by the courts.
Of the 48 concerts scheduled in 1970, local authorities stopped 30 of them with injunctions.
On Aug. 4, 1970, two days after Powder Ridge ended, a court order cancelled the Harmonyville Pop Festival in New Jersey.
3. It was supposed to be a second Woodstock. It wasn’t.
Powder Ridge lacked a certain something that made Woodstock so special. The New York Times reported,
The gentle euphoria—the grins, small smiles, and exchanged “V” signals— of people milling through the muddy fields of Bethel seemed to be missing at Powder Ridge. Instead, last night and this morning, the major pastime here was often shuffling walks along paved roads by grim-faced young men and women who looked remarkably similar to old people moving slowly along the boardwalks of the Rockaways or Atlantic City.
NBC News reporter Liz Trotta was more forgiving. She called Powder Ridge an “overcrowded country picnic.”
Woodstock Music and Art Festival
4. People called it the Powder Ridge Drug Festival.
Concertgoers were asked to drop drug donations into barrels of water, hence the name “electric water.” People took the resulting drug cocktails at their own risk, not knowing the strength or composition of what they were consuming.
William Abruzzi, known as the “Rock Doc” for treating young people at Woodstock, said the drug scene at Powder Ridge was the worst he’d ever seen. One day he said he treated about 30 bad trips an hour. A nearby middle school was turned into a temporary infirmary.
Some called it the Powder Ridge Drug Festival.
5. Some people in Middlefield welcomed the nonconcertgoers.
Police blockaded the roads to the ski resort, but locals could get through. They smuggled in food and set up a free kitchen. Twenty-five volunteers staffed it, serving rice, oats, vegetable stew, even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
One concertgoer later wrote, “One of the strongest memories was a Tractor Trailer FULL of Yogurt. A few hours later, people were throwing up purple yogurt all over the place. I guess yogurt and drugs don’t mix.”
6. No one got a refund.
Tickets cost $20, about $125 today. Ticket buyers were instructed to send check or money order with self-addressed envelope to an address on West 57th St. in New York. The promoters skipped town with the money; the ski resort owners got nothing.
7. A resurrection of the Powder Ridge festival didn’t happen either.
In 2024, Powder Ridge Ski Area CEO Sean Hayes announced a Powder Ridge Music Festival would take place October 4 and 5. A Grateful Dead cover band, Shakedown, was scheduled to play, and only 2,200 tickets would be sold.
The shows, however, didn’t happen. According to WFSB, Powder Ridge canceled them. But this time, at least, they were moved elsewhere—to the Westville Music Bowl in New Haven. Performers included the Violent Femmes, the Blues Travelers, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Gin Blossoms.
Images: Hippie on the slopes By Armandd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7736195; Melanie By Armandd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7777382. Woodstock By Derek Redmond and Paul Campbell – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=247702.
