Isle of Wight Festival the world, with estimates of over 600,000, surpassing the attendance at Woodstock. Included in the line-up of over fifty performers were Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, The Doors, The Who, Lighthouse, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Melanie, Donovan, Gilberto Gil, Free, Chicago, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Taste and Tiny Tim. The unexpectedly high attendance levels led, in 1971, to Parliament adding a section to the Isle of Wight County Council Act 1971 preventing overnight open-air gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a special licence from the
Isle of Wight Central Railway its presumed competitors. The dominance of the Portsmouth – Ryde ferry route had not yet been established, and in any case Cowes was assumed to be the port of entry for goods and minerals. The Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Act was given the Royal Assent on 31 July 1868, to build a line from Newport to the Sandown station of the Isle of Wight Railway. The competing proposals were rejected; those who favoured a line from Newport to Ryde were disappointed, and continued the struggle. The operation of the Isle of Wight Railway enhanced the importance of Ryde as