Rock festival
Name Years Location Notes
Historic jazz festivals 1950s-1960s US/Europe Some early jazz festivals and blues festivals were showcases for rock and roll artists , primarily in the US and the UK
Swamp Pop Music Festival 1950s-1960s Louisiana Swamp pop is a distinctive style of music that began in the 1950s when Louisiana teenagers first heard new rock-n-roll idols like Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley and Fats Domino on the radio . The Festival 's most popular period was between 1958 and 1964 , when nearly two dozen swamp pop recordings reached the national charts
Newport Jazz Festival 1954-present Newport , Rhode Island It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard . While initially focused on acoustic jazz , the festival 's 1969 program was an experiment in fusing jazz , soul and rock music and audiences
Beaulieu Jazz Festival 1956-1961 Beaulieu , Hampshire Lord Montagu of Beaulieu holds an annual traditional and modern jazz festival in the ground of Beaulieu estate , in the New Forest . Attracts beats and jazz eccentrics , called 'ravers ' , and both pop and jazz music
National Jazz and Blues Festival 1961-1980s United Kingdom Though dedicated mostly to jazz and blues in the beginning , this annual festival has become a showcase for progressive rock as well , featuring groups such as the psychedelic rock group Cream
Reading and Leeds Festivals 1961-present England The line-up settled into a pattern of progressive rock , blues and hard rock during the early and mid 1970s then became the first music festival to embrace punk rock and new wave in the late 1970s
Festival Omladina 1961-1990 2012- present Subotica , Serbia ( Yugoslavia 1961- '90 ) Established in Subotica in 1961 , Festival Omladina ( Youth Festival ) was originally a competition of young composers of popular music . Their compositions were initially performed by pop singers , but soon the performers of competing compositions became rock bands . In 1970s , the non-competitive part , featuring established rock acts , was added to the program , and in the 1980s the festival became a competition of young rock bands . During the years , some of the most notable acts of the Yugoslav pop and rock scene performed on the festival
Parada ritma / Vatromet ritma 1964-1965 Yugoslavia Parada ritma ( Parade of Rhythm ) / Vatromet ritma ( Fireworks of Rhythm ) was a series of concerts featuring Yugoslav rock bands , held in Belgrade and Novi Sad during 1964 and 1965 . The first edition is considered the first rock festival in Yugoslavia and arguably the first rock festival in a communist country
Vilar de Mouros Festival 1965-1968 1971 1982 1996-2006 2014 2016-present Portugal Usually recognized in Portugal as the precursor of all the music festivals , the Vilar de Mouros Festival became a cultural icon , counting with the first edition in 1965 . In that year it was organized a folk festival that by the large impact it had , reached immortalization in 1971 , most of all because of rock music nature and the presence of bands with great international projection . Held with long interregnums and therefore named as the festival of several generations , it has been creating a certain eclecticism , which attracts musical styles that lead people with the most different musical tastes
Jazz Bilzen 1965-1981 Bilzen , Belgium First festival on the continent where jazz and pop music were brought together . Sometimes called the mother of all ( European ) festivals , Bilzen started out jazz , but soon blues , folk , rock and soul , later even punk and new wave , came to be incorporated as well
Gitarijada ( Belgrade ) 1966-1967 Belgrade , Yugoslavia Gitarijada ( Guitar Fest ) was a festival held in Belgrade , featuring performances of Yugoslav rock bands . The festival was one of early rock festivals in Yugoslavia and considered one of the milestones in the history of Yugoslav rock music . The first edition of the festival was attended by more than 15,000 and the second by more than 13,000 spectators
Gitarijada ( Zaječar ) 1966-present Zaječar , Serbia ( Yugoslavia 1966 - '91 ) Established in Zaječar in 1966 , Gitarijada ( Guitar Fest ) is one of the longest lasting festivals in Serbia and in South Eastern Europe and the largest festival of young and unaffirmed bands in South Eastern Europe . Currently , it consists of competitive part and of non-competitive part featuring well-known Serbian and foreign acts
Trips Festival 1966 San Francisco , California The Trips Festival on January 21-23 , 1966 was the most attended and advertised of the early Acid Tests events , which were started in late 1965 . Ten thousand people attended this sold-out event , with a thousand more turned away each night . On Saturday January 22 , Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company came on stage , and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully developed light shows of the era . Grateful Dead sound engineer Ken Babbs notably created a new sound system for the festival , building sound amplifiers that did n't distort when turned up to high sound levels . The Trips Festival was followed by the October 6 , 1966 Love Pageant Rally , held in San Francisco to protest the banning of LSD
Mantra-Rock Dance 1967 California Occurring several weeks after the Human Be-In event on January 14 , 1967 , the January 29 Mantra-Rock Dance was a precursor event to the large outdoor festivals that debuted in the summer of 1967 . The dance was held in San Francisco 's Avalon Ballroom , featured three bands including Grateful Dead , and was organized by followers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness to introduce its founder to a wider American audience
Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival 1967 Marin County , California Over 36,000 people attended the two-day concert and fair on June 10 and 11th , that was the first of a series of San Francisco area cultural events known as the Summer of Love . Influenced by the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire , which was founded in Irwindale , California in 1963 as the first large renaissance fair . Fantasy Fair became a prototype for large scale multi-act outdoor rock music events now known as rock festivals
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 Monterey , California Major one-time cultural event on June 16-18 , with genres including rock , pop and folk , including blues-rock , folk rock , hard rock and psychedelic rock styles
Schaefer Music Festival 1967-1976 New York City First held in the summer of 1966 in Central Park as the small event the Rheingold Central Park Music Festival , the first lineup in July 1967 with the new name included only The Young Rascals ; The Jimi Hendrix Experience ; and Len Chandler . The lineup afterwards grew exponentially , with diverse genres related to blues and pop . On 21 July 1969 Led Zeppelin were the headliners of the Schaefer Music Festival at New York City 's Wollman Rink , along with B.B . King
1968 Pop & Underground Festival 1968 Hallandale , Florida An estimated 25,000 people attended the May event , which was promoted by Richard O'Barry and Michael Lang , later famous as promoter of Woodstock . This event would later come to be known colloquially as the Miami Pop Festival , though it was unrelated to the December 1968 Miami Pop Festival
Northern California Folk Rock Festival I 1968 San Jose , California May 18-19 , 1968 . The first festival featured notable bands such as Jefferson Airplane , The Doors , Janis Joplin , The Youngbloods , The Electric Flag , Kaleidoscope , Taj Mahal , etc
Summerfest 1968-present Milwaukee , Wisconsin Billed as The World 's Largest Music Festival by the Guinness World Records since 1999 , this 11-day event is held between late June and early July , encompassing all genres of musical styles
Historic rock festivals -- 1950s–1960s
A rock festival is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts performing an often diverse range of rock music including heavy metal, hard rock, punk rock and related genres. As originally conceived in the mid to late 1960s, rock festivals were held outdoors, often in open rural areas or open-air sports arenas, fairgrounds and parks, typically lasted two or more days, featured long rosters of musical performers, and attracted very large crowds, sometimes numbering several hundred thousand people.