Rock on With This Quiz on Famous Music Festivals

What started as a jazz festival on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1967 has grown into an international celebration of all genres of music. For two weeks each summer, the town of Montreux transforms into one of the top music destinations in the world, hosting nearly 250,000 attendees. The festival has welcomed a variety of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Prince, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder.

The Emerald City’s annual Bumbershoot music festival was originally called the Mayor’s Festival. When it debuted in 1971, it featured around 150 mostly local acts and attracted around 120,000 people. In 1973, it was renamed Bumbershoot (another word for an umbrella) and attendance soared as its musical lineup grew — “Rolling Stone” once called it "the mother of all festivals."

The VIP Pass for Reykjavik’s exclusive Secret Solstice Festival costs a whopping $1 million USD. The ticket includes private round-trip airfare, luxury accommodations, private dining and security, two private concerts, and more. For most concertgoers, the general admission price of around $300 is more reasonable. The festival is held under the midnight sun — when Iceland gets around 24 hours of sunlight because of its location within the Arctic Circle.

Milwaukee’s Summerfest bills itself as the “World’s Largest Music Festival” — a record it set in 1999, according to Guinness World Records, when it drew over 850,000 spectators. While it has since been surpassed in attendance, the festival is still extremely popular. The first Summerfest was held in July 1968, and the event has featured popular musicians such as the Rolling Stones and Dave Matthews Band.

Now one of the planet’s largest performing arts events, Glastonbury began on September 19, 1970 — the day after music legend Jimi Hendrix died — with an attendance of just 1,500 people. The ticket price was £1 GBP (about $1 USD) and included free milk from the farm where the festival took place. The event has since grown exponentially, welcoming acts including Beyoncé, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, and Pink Floyd.

The four-day Lollapalooza festival debuted in 1991 in Grant Park along Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago. The festival is now held every August and welcomes around 200,000 attendees of all ages, thanks to its wide range of music genres. Lollapalooza is one of the oldest music festivals in the U.S. and has expanded to seven other countries in South America and Europe.

Stagecoach is one of the largest country music festivals in the world. Since 2007, the weekend-long event has been held in Indio, California. Its inaugural weekend welcomed such headliners as George Strait and Brooks & Dunn. When the Eagles played the following year, attendance nearly doubled to about 40,000 daily attendees. Today, Stagecoach brings in over 70,000 concertgoers each day.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is held annually at the Empire Polo Club just outside Palm Springs, on the edge of the Colorado Desert. Coachella began as a two-day festival in October 1999 and has grown significantly in its 20-year existence, now attracting an average of 75,000 attendees each day. Past headliners have included Lady Gaga, Madonna, Paul McCartney, and Jay-Z.

Living up to its name, the Burning Man festival culminates in a ceremonial burning of a wooden effigy shaped like a man on the second-to-last night — a ritual started by the creators of the event in 1986, when they burnt their first effigy on a San Francisco beach on the summer solstice. The festival, which celebrates personal freedom and community, later moved to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, where the “Man” grew taller, the crowds grew larger, and the list of musical performers grew longer and more well-known.

On August 15, 1969, half a million people gathered at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York. The event was originally supposed to be held at Howard Mills Industrial Park, but after plans fell through, organizers rented the farmland. One of the most famous music festivals of all time, the event featured acts including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.