A festival is a mass celebration, a display of achievements of professional and amateur creativity.
Based on this definition, we can derive a more specific definition of a music festival, as there is no scientific definition.
A music festival is a mass event, celebration, display of achievements of professional and amateur musical creativity.
Music festivals are one of the main forms of development of musical tourism. It is even more profitable for the local economy, as they often cover several days or at least a weekend. Also, music festivals tend to include more than one band, increasing the likelihood that people will want to attend.
Some cities or regions have decided to earn commuters through a music festival while also affecting other events such as food festivals or other community events that can generate additional income. Similarly, some cities have begun to attract performers and fans on an almost permanent basis, given the cultural characteristics associated with a particular style of music.
There is a development in the tourism music industry of almost types of music, although rock music is the most popular. More and more independent bands are now going on tour, but they are often not big venues in cities. This gives even small business owners the opportunity to earn extra income from the music tourism industry. For example, owners of small restaurants and cafes, bars, organize venues, places that allow musicians to perform, and often even one show can bring in a good income. As long as the music matches the preferences of the customers who frequent the establishment, it can contribute to a large increase in revenue.
Music festivals have been around since time immemorial, In the broadest sense, they are one of the oldest and most common forms of music tourism. Musicians have been an invariable part of the festivities around harvests, equinoxes, and village fairs. But it is impossible to trace when festivals began to develop a tourist dimension. The title “Europe’s oldest festival” is claimed by the Chorus Festival in England, a festival that dates back to 1724 (and still continues) at Hereford Cathedral, Gloucester and Worcester, although Antrim’s Oul’ Lammas Fair, the Ballycastle Fair was founded in 1606. In the mid-1800s, opera and orchestral festivals, important destinations on the Grand Tour, proliferated in many European cities.
The rise of music festivals was a response to the increase in demand due to the relative growth of disposable income and free time after World War II, along with cheaper airfare, more freeways, and a more sophisticated tourist infrastructure. Festivals initially became primarily middle-class entertainment as part of the tourist experience.
Perhaps the first of the truly large-scale events to happen in the ’60s is undoubtedly Woodstock. Interestingly, in terms of promotion, its organizers worked below criticism: completely obscene posters, difficulties with selling tickets (they could only be bought in a number of districts of New York, and by mail through one not the most famous radio station) and much more.
The “positioning” of the event is particularly telling. One of the musicians, Tonne James and his band, declined to participate in the festival for the following reason: “When we were in Hawaii, my secretary called me and said that some pig farm owner outside of New York was inviting me to play there…”.
At the same time, the result, as they say, was there – then about half a million people came to the festival. And that speaks not only to the strongest program of the event and the “summer of love” vibe, as they now call that summer, but also to the fact that demand for such events clearly exceeded supply.
Woodstock did not become an annual event, but other festivals emerged, which began to be held to the delight of audiences and advertisers year after year. Thus, in 1970 the first concert of the world-famous Glastonbury Festival was held (incidentally, the price of admission ticket (£1) included a portion of milk – an unexpected, but centuries-old “invention”). A year later, the Sound Festival was held in Roskilde (Denmark), organized in complete absence of funds, but with a lot of enthusiasm (however, it can be said about most of the festivals of those years).
Since then their number increases every year. And by the way, many of them, in one way or another (in the name, in promotion, etc.) play up the word “Woodstock”.