1- An Abridged Look at Music Festivals

The Music Festival is a time honored tradition for all types of music fans everywhere; not just America. They provide a forum for like minded individuals to indulge in a variety of different activities ranging from: listening to their favorite artists, meeting new people, discovering new artists, buying merchandise, just to name a few. With the media shift to digital, things like solid state albums are becoming obsolete because of high production cost, and the ease of making a single every few months, so Festivals offer fans something they can't get elsewhere.

In American Pop Culture music festivals can easily be traced as far back as Woodstock, however, the idea has actually been around much longer. The origin of the Music Festival can be traced as back as the Pythian Games in Ancient Greece, which actually included a musical competition1 . That sort of tradition carried on from that time and place, giving way to others like the Salzburg Festival which sought to further promote the work of Mozart2. So there has a notable shift from an environment of competition to one of commercialism and consumerism. Many festivals have some kind of common theme throughout to attract their specific demographic whereas others strive to appeal to the widest array of music lovers.

Today, the largest [and one of the most notable] Music Festival is Summerfest in Milwaukee Wisconsin; taking place every year around fourth of July time. While this festival is held annually, in the same location, there are others that travel with varying dates; such as Bamboozle or Warped Tour. These tours have a various stages sponsored by various companies to show case a wide array of mainstream as well as local talent; other contemporary festivals like Uproar feature only one stage were all the acts perform. The life blood of any music festival is trying to remain culturally relevant and to date with all things current. One such success story would include the 2011 Summerfest in which "the final attendance figure [was]- 878,636 over the 11 day run- [was] 2.6% higher than the turn out in 20103." With the rapidly changing landscape of music, we are constantly seeing changes to these cultural linchpins.

1^ Scott, Michael. Delphi: The Bellybutton of the Ancient World. BBC 4. 20:56 minutes in. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En25VkbXE8E>.

2^ Eisen, Cliff & Keefe, Simon P., eds. (2006). The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, p. 443. Cambridge University Press. Print.

3^ Held, Tom. Summerfest Posts Increase in Attendance, Revenue. 18 July 2011. Journal Sentinel Online. <http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/125764688.html>.