Changes

In the Medieval era, most of the music that took place we would perhaps today classify as folk music or local music from regions that would involve common instruments rather than regal or more formal instruments that would have developed and became popularized in the early Modern Era after the 16th century. In the 19th century, the Bayreuth Festival, in 1876 in Baveria, became one of the first formal and annual festivals dedicated specifically to music and patronized at the highest level of government (Figure 2). This festival was patronized by King Ludwig II and was attended to by other royalty from Europe and elsewhere. The festival began as an occasion to promote the composer Richard Wagner, who wanted to popularize his music. The festival was effective in achieving this, as Wagner did become a well-known artist from the period. Furthermore, the festival continues until today, where it is the best-known and probably longest-lived modern festival dedicated to Wagner's music. For later festivals, this showed artists that music festivals could be highly effective to promote their work.<ref>For more on the influence of the Bayreuth Festival on music and festivals, see: Spotts, Frederic. <i>Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival</i>. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1994. </ref>

In the 20th century, Jazz was perhaps the first genre to take advantage of music festivals. There were many smaller venues and festivals throughout the United States and Europe in the early 20th century. Most festivals did not have financial backing the enabled them to last beyond one year or organize as such so that they could draw in hundreds of thousands of people. Most festivals were focused on local performances and, similar to Medieval festivals, incorporated various other events and not just music. The Bayreuth Festival was effectively an exception, and mostly because it had royal support. However, in the 1950s larger events began to be organized. At first, it was the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954 that began a trend of larger venues, mainly focusing on Jazz. The movie <i>Jazz on a Summer's Day</i> in 1958 popularized the festival and this arguably began a trend for audiences wanting more festivals. Newport also organized festivals for folk music, with the Newport Folk Festival opening in 1959. Although not as well known as the jazz festivals, the festival did introduce Bob Dylan to audiences and helped to promote his career. In 1961, what would ultimately become one of the UK's biggest and most well-known music festivals originated as the National Jazz and Blues Festival, which would later become the Reading Festival , in Reading outside of London, that became increasingly Rock oriented and similarly derived music later on. As Jazz helped develop what would become Rock music, many early artists began to use Jazz festivals, in the US and UK, to showcase Rock music. This trend continued throughout most of the late 1950s and 1960s when for larger rock bands, who by now became well established, still used Jazz festivals to play their music. This included Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tullusing open-air music festivals. Organizers now began to see Rock as a genre that could attract its own festivals goers.<ref>For more on the influence of Jazz on music festivals, see: McKay, George, ed. <i>The Pop Festival: History, Music, Media, Culture</i>. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.</ref>