Rock festival

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

A rock festival, or rock fest, is a large-scale outdoor rock music concert, featuring multiple acts, often spread out over several days. The first rock festivals were put on in the late 1960s and were social and sociopolitical milestones as well as musical events. Later rock festivals were increasingly commercial endeavors. In the 1980s a minor resurgence of festivals occurred with charity as the goal.

Important rock festivals include:

• The Monterey Pop Festival (1967) - The first rock festival was the climax of the summer of love on the West coast, and became the model for all that followed.
• Woodstock (1969) - Considered the most famous and important rock festival.
• The Altamont Speedway concert (1969) - The infamous and deadly event revealed the dark side of the festival.
• The Isle of Wight Festival (1970) - the first British rock festival, modeled after the Monterey and Woodstock festivals.
• The Atlanta Pop Festival
• California Jam - The first media-sponsored, commercially lucrative festival.
• Bonnaroo
• Live Aid
• Farm Aid
• Woodstock 1999
• Glastonbury festival
• Reading Festival
• Big Day Out
• the Roskilde Festival. Has grown to become one of the biggest rock/pop festivals in Europe.

A recent innovation is the traveling rock fest, which combines the festival tradition of many artists and bands featured over several days with the greater reach of music tours. These have been so successful that they are often repeated in subsequent years. Some notable traveling rock fests are:

• Lollapalooza — the traveling festival that started the trend
• Lilith Fair — Sarah McLachlan-organized festival featuring female artists
• Warped Tour — Punk / Ska festival