33-677: Hellfest ( French pronunciation: [ɛlfɛst] ), also known as Hellfest Summer Open Air , is a rock festival focusing on heavy metal music , held annually in June in Clisson , France. Its high attendance makes it the French music festival with the largest turnover. It is also one of the biggest metal festivals in Europe and the first to exist in France. It originated in another music festival,
66-438: 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 a diverse lineup to showcase a broad array of popular music trends. Initially, some of the earliest rock festivals were built on
99-402: 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 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
132-479: 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
165-588: The Assemblée Nationale that the detractors of the festival should calm down. During the 2011 edition an homage was paid to Patrick Roy who died two months before. On 9 June 2010, the AFC (Associations Familiales Catholiques) sued the Hellfest, asking them not to allow people under 18 years old to attend the festival and to give them the titles of the songs to be played during the 2010 edition. On 14 June,
198-518: 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
231-405: The régions of Brittany , Lower Normandy and Pays de la Loire . Its readership has been unaffected by the decline of newspaper reading in France, unlike most other dailies. With 2.5 million daily readers (and a circulation of almost 800 000 units), it is by far the most read francophone newspaper in the world, ahead of French national newspapers Le Figaro and Le Monde . Ouest-France
264-519: 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
297-458: The Fury Fest, held from 2002 to 2005, in different areas of Pays de la Loire . Hellfest took over in 2006 and over the years has seen a continuous rise in visitors, from 22,000 in the first edition, to 55,000 tickets sold per day in 2017. In 2022, the seven-day festival featured 350 bands and was attended by 60,000 people per day. Its programming is primarily focused on hard rock and metal on
330-473: 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
363-537: The candidate and attacked the metal music festival Hellfest: "Our values are not like those of the Regional Council (PS); to be funding a satanic festival!". The same month, former minister and leader of the Parti chrétien-démocrate Christine Boutin wrote to Kronenbourg asking them to stop supporting the festival. The 30 March, questioned by deputy Patrick Roy , the minister Frédéric Mitterrand declared to
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#1732782426957396-473: The company refused to pay for the cancellation. The contract was sold before the development of the pandemic in China. It was reported that representatives from Albingia were claiming that the contract did not cover the pandemic because "respiratory diseases were excluded from the contract". On the day after its cancellation, it was announced that Hellfest was rescheduled to 18–20 June 2021. On 19 February 2021, it
429-543: The disappearance of the promoters with €600,000 in receipts. These losses marked the end of the festival, at least temporarily. On 8 April 2020, Benjamin Barbaud announced to Ouest-France that the 2020 edition of the festival would be cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic . The festival organization announced on 9 April 2020 that they paid on 17 December 2019 to Albingia , their insurance company , €175,000 for cancellation risks, including pandemic risks, but that
462-604: The festival sponsors to disengage from Hellfest. Coca-Cola announced a few days later that they will no longer support the festival. In March 2010, two days before local elections, Prime Minister François Fillon and the leader of the MPF Philippe de Villiers came to support Christophe Béchu, candidate of the UMP for the regional elections of the Pays de la Loire . In front of 1,500 people Mr De Villiers reiterated his support for
495-407: 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
528-566: The following years. It attracted 7,000 people to attend concerts of Sick of It All and Youth of Today (in) in 2003. The format changed to two days. Because no room was available in Clisson, the Hall of Trocardière (Rezé) hosted the second edition. The organization of the festival also changed: the "MAN.IN.FEST" association was created to take charge of the organization. In 2003, the festival had reached €30,000 in profit, allowing Benjamin Barbaud, one of
561-566: 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 the fourth "Jazz & Blues Festival" in 1964, a shift had begun that incorporated some blues and pop artists into
594-619: The founders, to become an employee of the structure. In 2004, the festival moved to Le Mans and took place in the halls of the 24 Hours circuit where it attracted 21,000 spectators for bands such as Slipknot and Soulfly. After a deficit in 2004, the 2005 festival inherited liabilities so that the organizing team decided to give the rights of the festival to other promoters in order to focus on organization. This time 30,000 admissions were recorded at Le Mans over three days, as fans came to see acts such as Slayer, Motörhead and Anthrax, across three stages. But financial problems worsened, particularly with
627-407: The judge refused their demand. The first association was created in 2000 in Clisson as "CLS CREW", in order to organize concerts of hardcore and punk in the region of Nantes. The success of these concerts made it possible to launch the first festival in June 2002, named Fury Fest. It gathered 400 people to attend Agnostic Front in Clisson at the sports complex of Val-de-Moine. The festival continued
660-488: 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 , 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
693-404: 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
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#1732782426957726-427: The same location on an annual basis. Some, like Farm Aid are held at different venues with each incarnation. Ouest-France Ouest-France ( French pronunciation: [wɛst.fʁɑ̃s] ; French for "West-France") is a daily French newspaper known for its emphasis on both local and national news. The paper is produced in 47 different editions covering events in different French départements within
759-737: 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 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
792-751: 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 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
825-533: 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 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
858-475: 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 the San Francisco area, the first two rock festivals in the US were staged in northern California on consecutive weekends in
891-413: The two main stages, while each of the four other festival's stages are dedicated to a particular style like black metal , death metal , doom metal or stoner metal , making possible the presence of groups such as Iron Maiden , Deep Purple , Motörhead , Metallica , Guns N' Roses , ZZ Top and KISS , as well as that of Slayer , Megadeth , Sepultura , Cannibal Corpse and Anthrax . The festival
924-465: 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 &
957-454: Was announced that Hellfest had once again been cancelled, due to "uncertainties about the health situation and the latest government regulations", and would be rescheduled to 2022. 47°05′45″N 1°16′05″W / 47.09583°N 1.26806°W / 47.09583; -1.26806 Rock festival A rock festival is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having
990-625: Was founded in 1944 by Adolphe Le Goaziou and others following the closure of Ouest-Éclair , which was banned by Liberation forces for collaborationism during the war. It is based in Rennes and Nantes and has a circulation about 792,400 (greater than any French national daily newspaper), mostly in Brittany . Its editorial line has been strongly pro- European integration from the beginning, influenced by Christian democracy ( Popular Republican Movement ), now MoDem , Nouveau Centre or Union for
1023-469: 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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1056-416: 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 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
1089-516: Was the successor of Fury Fest, which was held in 2002 and 2003 in Clisson and Nantes respectively, and 2004 and 2005 in Le Mans . Drakkar Productions also hosted a yearly black metal festival titled "Drakkar Hellfest - Darkness and Hate" in 2000 and 2001 in southern France and held a third year in 2002 in the Netherlands. In June 2009, numerous groups concerned about the concert name asked
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