The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day
concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County
Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Monterey was the first widely
promoted and heavily attended rock festival, attracting an estimated
55,000 total attendees with up to 90,000 people present at the event's
peak at midnight on Sunday. However,
these estimates seem fanciful in light of the actual capacity of the
venue in which the concerts took place: the Fairground's website states
that "The larger arena comfortably seats 5,850." It was notable as
hosting the first major American appearances by Jimi Hendrix and The Who, as well as the first major public performances of Janis Joplin and Otis Redding.The Monterey Pop Festival embodied the themes of California as a focal point for the counterculture and is generally regarded as one of the beginnings of the "Summer of Love" in 1967. It also became the template for future music festivals, notably the Woodstock Festival two years later.
