By now you’re all clued up on Fyre Festival, the biggest musical disaster since Coldplay’s last album.

If you’re not, stop in HERE, it’s actually quite a good laugh.

Of course things going south at a music festival is nothing new, and the most famous gathering of all has its own set of horror stories.

We’re talking Woodstock ’69, and TIME has some details on what went wrong:

[It] was declared a disaster area at the time by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Organizers [sic] failed to construct fencing and ticket booths in time, allowing the site to be overrun by 400,000 people when only half that many were expected. Roads became impassable for miles around. Food and water quickly ran out, forcing the Army to airlift in supplies. Two people died: one of a drug overdose, the other run over by a tractor. There were 5,162 medical incidents reported, including eight miscarriages.

Yeah, but we did get to watch Joe Cocker off his rocker singing ‘With a Little Help From My Friends‘.

Next up is Altamont, also in 1969, which is often referred to as the end of the Summer of Love:

Held at the Altamont Speedway in northern California in December 1969, just six months after the fiasco of Woodstock, it was intended by its organizers to be a Woodstock of the West Coast—only better…

Instead, the free concert where groups like the Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones performed became most notorious for the four deaths that took place at the event—to say nothing of multiple issues of crowd control, security and event management.

Among the fatalities was 18-year-old student Meredith Hunter, who was stabbed in the back by a Hell’s Angel, members of which were, inexplicably, hired as security personnel for the festival. One 19-year-old drowned and two festival-goers were fatally run over

You really should do yourself a favour and watch Gimme Shelter (trailer HERE), a brilliant doccie that combines interviews with the Rolling Stones members and footage from the festival itself.

Next – Woodstock ’99:

Inadequate water supply, sweltering late July temperatures, and a layout that forced festival-goers to walk 1.5 miles across heated-up asphalt between the two main stages, saw 700 people treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Overcrowding was rampant on account of widely counterfeited festival passes. Security volunteers walked off the job and the atmosphere deteriorated. Cases of sexual assault and rape were reported and the weekend ended in literal flames, as crowds set fire to cars, tents and booths, forcing authorities to send in New York State Troopers to restore order.

And so ended all future iterations of Woodstock.

Let’s move onto Glastonbury 2005:

More than anything else, the 2005 iteration of Glastonbury will be best remembered for the epic downpour and thunderstorm that pushed back its opening day. Scores of tents were washed away and portable toilets sank in the mud, while the stage and some power lines were affected by lightning, the BBC reported. Several attendees were photographed swimming after their possessions.

At least the Brits are used to a little rain.

Finally here’s TomorrowWorld 2015:

Inclement weather turned the 8,000-acre Georgia farmland site of this ill-starred outdoor EDM festival into a massive swamp, which in turn played havoc with transportation. Carparks and drop-off points were rendered unusable, and shuttle services were cancelled. In a bid to control the chaotic build-up, organizers decided to restrict access to the event’s Sunday program to those with camping tickets only—infuriating festival-goers who had bought day passes.

The lack of transportation mean that people who wanted to leave the site could not do so without trekking for miles. Many slept, exhausted and starving, by the side of the road. One attendee said “they left us to rot like walking dead!” Comparisons were even made to — you guessed it — “the Hunger Games.”

We’re only scratching the surface there – check out VICE’s “How TomorrowWorld Became an Epic Disaster Of Near-Riots and Looming Lawsuits” for a more in-depth take on that fiasco.

I guess the thing about those festivals mentioned above is that they didn’t charge between $450 and $250 000 for a ticket.

Glastonbury and the like don’t come cheap, but for a quarter of a million dollars I’m going to expect some frills and fuss.

[source:time]