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35-593: In 1968 and 1969, veteran broadcaster Bob Whitney experimented with a new concept in television programming, in which the hit Top 40 songs of the day were coupled with the latest in the era's videotaping and filming techniques. The resulting pilot enlisted the studio facilities of several stations: WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas , WHBQ-TV Memphis, Tennessee , WKBS-TV Philadelphia and KMBC-TV in Kansas City . Location scenes were filmed at station studios or at locations within

70-619: A countdown of the 40 highest-ranked songs on a particular music or entertainment publication. Although such publications often listed more than 40 charted hits, such as the Billboard Hot 100 , time constraints allowed for the airing of only 40 songs; hence, the term "top 40" gradually became part of the vernacular associated with popular music. An article in the Spring 2012 issue of Nebraska History magazine offered this comment as to Todd Storz' legacy: "the radio revolution that Storz began with KOWH

105-570: A diverse lineup to showcase a broad array of popular music trends. Initially, some of the earliest rock festivals were built on the foundation of pre-existing jazz and blues festivals, but quickly evolved to reflect the rapidly changing musical tastes of the time. For example, the United Kingdom's National Jazz Festival was launched in Richmond from 26 to 27 August 1961. The first three of these annual outdoor festivals featured only jazz music, but by

140-496: A new home production base. Program segments were produced at Miami Teleproductions in Miami and 2 inch video editing was undertaken at Videotape Associates in Ft. Lauderdale (now VTA of Atlanta). After 26 weeks in syndication in early 1971, Whitney cancelled The Now Explosion , when the high costs of production and distribution outpaced the commercial revenue. Turner would once again enter

175-413: A short distance from these facilities. Whitney's aim was to create a cost-effective television program that would emulate the success of Top 40 radio, all the way down to the use of an unseen disk jockey. The concept was born about ten years before the arrival of MTV . In 1970, The Now Explosion began its first regular broadcasts on Atlanta's WATL-TV, where it aired 28 hours each weekend. By this time,

210-409: A single day or evening, often indoors, and featuring only a handful of acts. Today, rock festivals are usually open-air concerts spread out over two or more days and many of the annual events are sponsored by the same organization. Production and financing Several of the early rock festival organizers of the 1960s such as Chet Helms , Tom Rounds , Alex Cooley and Michael Lang helped create

245-539: A solely jazz festival that was inaugurated in 1965 in the Belgian city of Bilzen. The 1966 festival still featured mostly jazz acts. However, by the time of the third festival from 25 to 27 August 1967, rock and pop acts had edged out most of the jazz bands and become the main attraction. In the United States, rock festivals seemed to spring up with a more self-defined musical identity. Preceded by several precursor events in

280-474: A specific genre and may in turn become known and large enough to be seen as festivals themselves, such as was The Glade at the famous Glastonbury Festival in England. Advances in sound reinforcement systems beginning in the 1960s enabled larger and larger rock festival audiences to hear the performers' music with much better clarity and volume. The best example was the pioneering work of Bill Hanley , known as

315-404: A transition from the old ten-inch 78 rpm record format for single "pop" recordings to the seven-inch vinyl 45 rpm format, introduced in 1949, which was outselling it by 1954 and soon replaced it completely in 1958. The Top 40 thereafter became a survey of the popularity of 45 rpm singles and their airplay on the radio. Some nationally syndicated radio shows, such as American Top 40 , featured

350-451: Is also a radio format . According to producer Richard Fatherley, Todd Storz was the inventor of the format, at his radio station KOWH in Omaha, Nebraska . Storz invented the format in the early 1950s, using the number of times a record was played on jukeboxes to compose a weekly list for broadcast. The format was commercially successful, and Storz and his father Robert, under the name of

385-424: Is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular events, while others recur annually in the same location. Occasionally, a festival will focus on a particular genre (e.g., folk , heavy metal , world music ), but many attempt to bring together

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420-512: The Hells Angels and Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club . Gravy in particular called his security group the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order, e.g., "Please don't do that, please do this instead". When asked by the press — who were the first to inform him that he and the rest of his commune were handling security — what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at Woodstock in 1969, his response

455-712: The "Electric Collage." The Electric Collage production company was popular at major rock concerts and rock festivals . The producers of the Electric Collage visual music were able to produce complex lighting effects with projectors that were not possible using the video technology of the day. In 2000, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Archives at University of Georgia in Athens located and recovered significant amounts of this video which had been stored for 3 1 ⁄ 2 decades in south Florida. These segments were remastered to contemporary technical standards by

490-508: The "father of festival sound", who provided the sound systems for numerous rock festivals including Woodstock. Other examples included the Wall of Sound invented in the 1970s to allow the Grateful Dead to play to larger audiences. Camping and crowd control Many festivals offer camping, either because lodging in the area is insufficient to support the crowd, or to allow easy multi-day access to

525-546: The 1960s]. It seems fitting… that one of the most enduring labels for the entire generation of that era was derived from a rock festival: the ' Woodstock Generation'." Reflecting their musical diversity and the then-common term ' pop music ', for the first few years, particularly in the US, many rock festivals were called 'pop festivals'. This also served to distinguish them among the ticket-buying public from other, pre-existing types of music festivals such as jazz and folk festivals. By

560-466: The Night Tripper, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Steppenwolf A recent innovation is the traveling rock festival where many musical acts perform at multiple locations during a tour. Successful festivals are often held in subsequent years. The following is an incomplete list. The following is a list of festivals that predominantly feature rock genres that take place on a regular basis. Most are held at

595-687: The San Francisco area, the first two rock festivals in the US were staged in northern California on consecutive weekends in the summer of 1967: the KFRC Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais (10–11 June) and the Monterey International Pop Festival (16–17 June). The concept caught fire and spread quickly as rock festivals took on a unique identity and attracted significant media attention around

630-595: The Storz Broadcasting Company, subsequently acquired other stations to use the new Top 40 format. In 1989, Todd Storz was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. The term "Top 40", describing a radio format , appeared in 1960. The Top 40, whether surveyed by a radio station or a publication, was a list of songs that shared only the common characteristic of being newly released. Its introduction coincided with

665-473: The blueprint for large-scale rock festivals in the United States, as well promoters such as Wally Hope in the United Kingdom. In various countries, the organizers of rock festivals have faced legal action from authorities, in part because such festivals have attracted large counterculture elements. In 1972, Mar Y Sol Pop Festival in Manatí, Puerto Rico attracted an estimated 30–35,000 people, and an arrest warrant

700-399: The end of 1972, the term 'pop festival' had virtually disappeared as festival promoters adopted more creative, unique and location-specific names to identify and advertise their events. While it was still in vogue, however, over-zealous promoters eager to capitalize on the festival concept made the most of it, with some using the term "Pop Festival" or "Rock Festival" to advertise events held on

735-407: The festival's features. Festival planning and logistics are frequently a focus of the media, some festivals such as the heavily commercialized Woodstock 1999 were crowd control disasters, with insufficient water and other resources provided to audiences. Many early rock festivals successfully relied on volunteers for crowd control , for example individuals like Wavy Gravy and biker groups such as

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770-403: The fourth "Jazz & Blues Festival" in 1964, a shift had begun that incorporated some blues and pop artists into the lineup. In 1965, for the first time the event included more blues, pop and rock acts than jazz, and by 1966, when the event moved to the town of Windsor, the rock and pop acts clearly dominated the jazz artists. A similar, though more rapid, evolution occurred with Jazz Bilzen ,

805-412: The illuminated dancers were seen against darkened studio walls. Extensive special effects were added in post production as images were combined and distorted to form what production people often called "eye candy." Common special effects included aiming the camera into a monitor that said camera is connected to - a technique called " video feedback ." The original video and the newly captured pictures from

840-404: The money often gathered through fundraising and angel investors . Stages and sound systems While rock concerts typically feature a small lineup of rock bands playing a single stage, rock festivals often grow large enough to require several stages or venues with live bands playing concurrently. As rock music has increasingly been fused with other genres, sometimes stages will be devoted to

875-557: The monitor were combined with a video switcher to create an "infinity" effect as same video repeated itself in a seemingly endless visual loop. Changes in position or angle of the cameras were used to create trails of light which seemed to spill off dancers in a manner interpreted by many as "psychedelic." Producers felt the distorted video of moving bodies, often seeming to float in space, and moving "in tune" to pop songs, created enhanced enjoyment for viewers. Other images and effects came from an Atlanta 1960's style light show venture called

910-520: The music video television business with the debut of Night Tracks in 1983 which lasted nine years and Cable Music Channel (albeit for only a month) in 1984. The special effects used in The Now Explosion seem crude in later years but they were state of the art for the early 1970s era. Video was shot with heavy, non portable studio cameras on large rolling tripods. The music videos were recorded on two inch magnetic tape. The video editing required

945-638: The numerous others which eventually adopted the Top 40 format, were playing records by artists such as " Presley , Lewis , Haley , Berry and Domino ". From the 1980s onwards, different recording formats have competed with the 45 rpm vinyl record. This includes cassette singles , CD singles , digital downloads and streaming . Many music charts changed their eligibility rules to incorporate some, or all, of these. Some disc jockeys presenting Top 40 and similar format programs have been implicated in various payola scandals. Rock festival A rock festival

980-400: The program for a television station he had recently acquired, WTCG-TV. WATL closed down shortly afterward. While it was unclear whether or not the show contributed to WATL's viewership, it has been said by some that many of their viewers only watched WATL for The Now Explosion . The move had also shifted production of The Now Explosion to Fort Lauderdale, Florida , where Whitney established

1015-581: The show was produced at WATL's studios. Programs were bicycled to stations on 2 inch videotape and played back for extended periods from one to six hours. WPIX-TV in New York played five hours of The Now Explosion surrounding telecasts of New York Yankees baseball games in 1970. Stations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Sacramento and Boston had also picked up The Now Explosion . After 13 weeks at WATL, Ted Turner contracted to carry

1050-456: The university archives where the video is stored and is available for public viewing and academic study. Top 40 In the music industry , the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music . Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " contemporary hit radio "

1085-520: The use of three massive and costly "quad" tape recorders allowing only simple transitions such as cuts and dissolves. Most performers were young amateurs recruited from the Atlanta audience. Many appeared with home-grown costumes - often after midnight when station facilities became available - and were recorded dancing extemporaneously as rock rhythms were piped into an almost bare and darkened studio. The lighting often placed performers "in limbo" so that only

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1120-406: The world. By 1969, promoters were staging dozens of them. According to Bill Mankin, in their dawning age rock festivals were important socio-cultural milestones: "… it would not be an exaggeration to say that, over a few short years, rock festivals played a unique, significant – and underappreciated – role in fueling the countercultural shift that swept not only America but many other countries [during

1155-459: Was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles ." Other rock festivals hire private security or local police departments for crowd control, with varying degrees of success. Saturday, 21 June - Eric Anderson, Al Kooper, The Band, Bonzo Dog Band, Johnny Winter, Velvet Underground and Sly & the Family Stone. Sunday, 22 June - Ronnie Hawkins, Chuck Berry, Kensington Market, Tiny Tim, Nucleus, Dr. John &

1190-415: Was already sweeping the nation. Thousands of radio station owners had realized the enormous potential for a new kind of radio. When television became popular, social monitors predicted that radio would die. However, because of the invention of Storz and others like him, radio would be reborn". Storz is credited by some sources as helping to popularize rock and roll music. By the mid-1950s, his station, and

1225-464: Was issued for promoter Alex Cooley, who avoided arrest by leaving the island before the festival was over. British Free Festival organizers Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle were imprisoned for attempting to promote a 1975 Windsor Festival. The British police would later outright attack free festival attendees at the 1985 Battle of the Beanfield . Festivals may require millions of USD to be organized, with

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