Music festivals are rapidly expanding trends in the field of dance and music. They’re a trend for today’s generation and an influence for the programmatic modifications. In today’s musical world, they’re the mainstream commodity that is adored by millions of young generation teens and adults. Prior to this, these festivals were traced back to the 6th century BC. They were believed to be originated in the Greek era with gatherings that comprised of music and competition.
However, the term music festival was coined together in the middle and the late 16th century, mainly derived from the word “feast” which meant to harvest. The inception of the music culture to the world was marked in 1952, with the advent of the Newport Jazz Festival in the Rode Island. During those times, nearly 13,000 people gathered around the artists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald to witness the entire jazz musical madness.
It was an educational summit in the morning and a destination for musical performance in the evening. Even during the earlier times of the advent of these musical festivals, the youth preferred to sleep in tents on the ground and location of the celebrations. A sibling festival was later introduced in the country named Newport Folk festival which was made by Bob Dylan. It was decided to be dedicated to the electric music that also marked as a remarkable change in the pop culture. The festival also introduced the crowd and apparently the world, to rock and roll music and revolution folk.
Timeline of evolution
1967 marked the beginning of the Monterey Pop Festival in California which was also regarded as the first in the United States. The festival is known to have kicked the “summer of love” with a crowd strength of nearly 25,000 to 90,000 people.
In 1968, Milwaukee’s Summerfest was created, and it was exclusively for the North American population which extended for the longest if 11 days, attracting over 1,000,000 people from all over the world.
In 1969, the famous Woodstock music festival took place, which also marked as a change in the history of the musical genre. It also set foot into the realm of making financial gains by introducing people to the culture of music and musical festival.
The Burning man music festival was found in 1990, which marked a free-form of expression that manifested creative music through their arts and installations in the venue.
The rave culture of the music festivals was commercialized by the turn of the millennium and brought forward the result of the rave scene, artificial fog, laser lights, costumes and many of the traditional music festival cultures in an indoor party.
Bottom Line
From then, till today, the music festivals have faced the test of time, and it has only risen in terms of popularity and the number of festivals conducted per year. It has also introduced the world to new genre’s and artists from all over the world.