The History of Music Festivals: Part 1

Coachella. Bonnaroo. Lollapalooza. While these are the hottest music festivals today, you may not know that music festivals have been around for over 60 years

dating back to the days of Woodstock.

Whether you want to organize a stellar music festival, or simply love being a participant, we’re going to take you on a journey to explore where these gatherings of music, art and culture began.

Newport Jazz Festival

The first music festival took place in 1954 in Newport, Rhode Island. The Newport Jazz Festival had a crowd of over 11,000 jazz lovers in attendance. Aside from jazz musicians and aficionados, the festival was also host to academic panels to catch the attention of professional’s and student’s.

The Festival relocated to New York for a short five-year stint in the 70s, and since then has moved back to Rhode Island and continues to take place year after year. Jazz legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong have all performed at the Newport Jazz Festival over the years.

Monterey's International Pop Festival

By the late 60s the festival scene had migrated west to California, with the Monterey’s International Pop Festival. Not only was it the first major rock festival of its kind, it was also an event planning miracle, the entire three-day festival was put together in only six weeks.

It featured music from several genres and musical time periods. Run by a board of governors that included Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney, they resolved that all the artists playing would receive the same a-list treatment, regardless of their current level of success.

Woodstock

August 15th 1969, arguably the grooviest day in all of music history, or more commonly known as Woodstock, the most memorable music festival in American history.

Invigorated by the age of free love, Woodstock, an epic three (turned four) day festival featuring 32 different musical acts took place on a dairy farm in Bethel New York. Artists included Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Canned Heat, The Who and of course the guitar-lighting Jimi Hendrix.

Woodstock is remembered for its outstanding success and incredible music, but it was actually a logistical nightmare. The event organizers were only expecting to host around 50,000 people, but that number changed when they sold quadruple that amount in tickets.

If you think that’s bad, the actual number of people who attended ballooned up to 500,000, forcing those who planned the festival to open up the fences and basically accept that it had grown out of their control and become a free concert. Regardless, it will forever go down as a pivotal movement in music history.

Isle of Wight Festival

Though its debut was actually the year before the outrageous success of Woodstock, it’s landmark year didn’t come until 1970. By then, the Isle of Wight was hosting artists like Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, The Who, The Doors and Bob Dylan.

A gathering the size of the Isle of Wight Festival was seemingly unprecedented in England, and after the festival’s breakthrough year, Parliament was forced to put up some red tape. From then on, gatherings of over 5,000 people would require a permit.

More awesome info on the history of the music festival coming up soon! Stay tuned for part two.